Family name origins & meanings
- German : occupational name or status name for an arbiter or judge, Middle High German rihtære (from rihten ‘to make right’). The term was used in the Middle Ages mostly to denote a part-time legal official. Such communal conciliators held a position of considerable esteem in rural communities; in eastern Germany the term came to denote a village headman, which was often a hereditary office. It is in this region that the surname is most frequent.
- Jewish (Ashkenazic) : occupational name for a rabbinic judge, from modern German Richter ‘judge’ (see 1 above). See also Dayan.