Family name origins & meanings
- German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : nickname for a rotund person, from Middle High German kugel(e), German Kugel ‘ball’, ‘orb’. The term also denoted a hooded cloak or round-topped mountain, and in some cases the surname may have arisen from either of these senses.
- Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : from Yiddish kugl, a term denoting various kinds of pudding.