Back Family History

English (Devon, Kent, Sussex, and Norfolk): from the Middle English personal name Bakke (Old English Bacca). It is of uncertain origin but may have been a byname in the same sense as English: nickname from Middle English bakke ‘bat’ of uncertain application, perhaps a nickname for a person with poor eyesight from the expression ‘blind as a bat’. English: from Middle English bakke ‘back’ (Old English bæc) hence a nickname for someone with a hunched back or some other noticeable peculiarity of the back or spine or a topographic name for someone who lived on a hill or ridge or at the rear of a settlement.

Americanized form of German Bach or German (Bäck): variant of Beck. North German and Dutch: from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch back ‘trough, tub, bin’ hence a metonymic occupational name for someone who made or used such artefacts. Dutch and North German: perhaps also a derivative of baa(c)k ‘pig; bacon, ham’ hence a nickname for a butcher or a pig farmer.

Dutch: topographic name for someone who lived at the back of somewhere such as a village, a main street, or a manor house from a phrase such as van de back or from Bak- ‘back’ as a bound form. Dutch: from the medieval personal name Ba(c)k(e), which could be a short form of several ancient Germanic personal names beginning with Bald- ‘bold’, Bade- ‘envoy’, or Bag- ‘up in arms’.

Dutch: in some cases also a derivative of Backer ‘baker’ and perhaps also a nickname for someone with a hunched back as in the English name. Swedish (Bäck): topographic or ornamental name from bäck ‘small stream or brook’ or a habitational name from a place called Bäck or from a placename containing the word bäck. Compare Beck.

Swedish: variant of Backe. Americanized form of Norwegian Bakk (see Bakke).