Family name origins & meanings
- North German, Frisian, and Dutch : from a form of the personal name Richard, or a variant of the Dutch name Rijker, composed of the Germanic elements rīc ‘power(ful)’ + hari, heri ‘army’.
- North German : topographic name from Middle Low German recke ‘stretch’, ‘route’, ‘hedge’, or a habitational name for someone from Recke, near Osnabrück.