Updated June 9, 2019

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Family name origins & meanings

  • English, German, Dutch, and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : nickname for a lively person or for a traveling entertainer, from an agent derivative of Middle English, Middle High German springen, Middle Dutch springhen, Yiddish shpringen ‘to jump or leap’.
  • English : topographic name for someone who lived by a fountain or the source of a stream, Middle English spring ‘spring’ + the habitational suffix -er. The same word was also used of a plantation of young trees, and in some cases this may be the source of the surname.