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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English and North German : occupational name for a maker of pins or pegs (or alternatively, in the case of the German name, a metonymic occupational name for a shoemaker), a derivative of Pinn, with the addition of the agent suffix -er.
  • English : occupational name for a maker or user of combs, Anglo-Norman French peigner, an agent derivative of peigne ‘comb’.
  • English : habitational name from Pinner, now part of northwest London, which derives its name from Old English pinn ‘pin’, ‘peg’ + ōra ‘slope’, ‘ridge’, describing a projecting hill spur.
  • Jewish (Ashkenazic) : habitational name for someone from Pinne (Polish Pniewy) near Poznań.
  • German : habitational name for someone from a place called Pinnan or Pinne.

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