Family name origins & meanings
- German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : occupational name for someone who made candles or possibly for someone who tended a light, from an agent derivative of from Middle High German lieht, Yiddish likht ‘candle’, ‘light’.
- German (Rhineland) : variant of Leichter.
- Dutch : from Middle Dutch lichter ‘candlestick’, ‘chandelier’, hence probably a metonymic occupational name for a maker of such items or perhaps for someone who tended a light, from an agent derivative of lichten ‘to make light’.
