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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : metonymic occupational name for a player of a musical instrument (any musical instrument, not necessarily what is now known as an organ), from Middle English organ (Old French organe, Late Latin organum ‘device’, ‘(musical) instrument’, Greek organon ‘tool’, from ergein ‘to work or do’).
  • English : from a rare medieval personal name, attested only in the Latinized forms Organus (masculine) and Organa (feminine). Its etymology is obscure; it may be a reworking of a Celtic name.
  • French : habitational name from a place in the Hautes Pyrénées named Organ.

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