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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : nickname for a bald man, from Middle High German gla(t)z ‘bald head’, ‘bald’ (a derivative of Middle High German, Old High German glat ‘smooth’, ‘shiny’, an equivalent of Glad), German Glatze ‘baldness’. In some cases the German surname may be topographic for someone living on a bare, treeless hill.
  • German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : habitational name from Glatz, the German name of Kłodzko in Lower Silesia.

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