English, Scottish, German, and Dutch: from Middle English,
Middle High German, Middle Dutch horn ‘horn’, applied in a
variety of senses: as a metonymic occupational name for someone who
made small articles, such as combs, spoons, and window lights, out of
horn; as a metonymic occupational name for someone who played a
musical instrument made from the horn of an animal; as a topographic
name for someone who lived by a horn-shaped spur of a hill or tongue
of land in a bend of a river, or a habitational name from any of the
places named with this element (for example, in England, Horne in
Surrey on a spur of a hill and Horn in Rutland in a bend of a river);
as a nickname, perhaps referring to some feature of a person’s
physical appearance, or denoting a cuckolded husband.
Norwegian:
habitational name from any of several farmsteads so named, from Old
Norse horn ‘horn’, ‘spur of land’.
Swedish:
ornamental or topographic name from horn ‘horn’, ‘spur of
land’.
Jewish (Ashkenazic): presumably from German
Horn ‘horn’, adopted as a surname for reasons that are not
clear. It may be purely ornamental, or it may refer to the ram’s horn
(Hebrew shofar) blown in the Synagogue during various
ceremonies.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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