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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • North German : topographic name for someone who lived by an alder tree, from Middle Low German elre, alre ‘alder’.
  • German : habitational name from places in the North Rhine and Mosel areas, so called from an old stream name Elera, Alira, of Celtic origin.
  • Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : variant of Heller, reflecting varieties of Yiddish in which there is no h.

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