Family name origins & meanings
- English : from Middle English gander, Old English gand(r)a ‘gander’, ‘male goose’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a keeper of geese, or a nickname for someone supposedly resembling a gander in some way.
- English : variant of Ganter.
- North German : perhaps a habitational name from Gandern in Brandenburg.
- North German : nickname for a vain or self-important man from ganter ‘male goose’, ‘gander’.
- South German and Swiss German : habitational name from a place named with Middle High German gant ‘scree’ (Swiss gand), or topographic name for someone living by an area of scree.