Family name origins & meanings
- South German : variant of Vogt.
- South German : topographic name for someone living near a grass- or moss-covered spot or an enclosure, Middle High German vate, vade.
- South German : metonymic occupational name for a carpenter who made roof trusses, from phate ‘roof beam’, a derivative of medieval Latin patena.
- South German : from a cognate of Gothic faths ‘man’, a byname also contained in Vetter ‘paternal uncle’, ‘cousin’.