Family name origins & meanings
- German : epithet for a settler who was new to an area, from Middle High German niu(we) ‘new’ + (ge)būre ‘settler’, ‘resident’, ‘peasant’ (see Bauer).
- Jewish : either an adoption of the German surname (Jews were not usually agricultural workers at the time when surnames were acquired) or an artificial creation of a name from the German vocabulary word without any relationship to the actual occupation of the first Jewish bearer.