Family name origins & meanings
- English : perhaps a nickname for a shy or short-sighted person, from Old English wand ‘mole’. Compare Want.
- German : occupational name for a weaver or cloth cutter, from a reduced form of Middle High German gewant ‘cloth’, ‘garment’. Compare Wander 2.
- German : topographic name from Middle High German want ‘wall’, ‘steep rock’, ‘precipice’.
- Dutch : metonymic occupational name for a glove maker, from Middle Dutch wante ‘glove’.