Family name origins & meanings
- German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : metonymic occupational name for a chandler, from Middle High German lieht, Yiddish likht ‘candle’, ‘light’. In some instances the German name may have arisen as a nickname from the same word in the sense ‘light’, ‘shining’, and the Jewish name may have been ornamental.
- German : habitational name from places called Lichta or Lichte, both in Thuringia.
- Dutch : nickname for a slight man, from licht ‘light (in weight)’.