Family name origins & meanings
- German : from Middle High German seiger ‘scales’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a tester of weights. The word later developed the meaning ‘clock’, ‘watch’, and some examples of the surname may have arisen from a metonymic occupational name for a maker of timepieces.
- Jewish (Ashkenazic) : metonymic occupational name for a watchmaker, from Yiddish zeyger ‘watch’, ‘clock’ (see 1 above).