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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Portuguese : nickname from leite ‘milk’ (Late Latin lacte), probably denoting someone with a particularly pale complexion.
  • German and Dutch : from the female personal name Aleit(e), a short form of a Germanic name, Adelheid, formed of the elements adal ‘noble’ + heid ‘kind’, ‘sort’, ‘(human) being’.
  • Norwegian : habitational name from any of several farmsteads in western Norway named Leite or Leitet, from Old Norse leiti ‘hill’, ‘elevation’.

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