Family name origins & meanings
- German, Dutch, and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : topographic name from Middle High German ecke, egge ‘corner’, German Eck(e) (Yiddish ek). This could have been the corner of two streets or, in the case of the German name, the corner of a field or area of land or a rocky outcrop.
- German : short form of any of the various Germanic compound personal names with a first element agi(n), agil ‘edge’, ‘point of a sword’, akin to the word in 1 above.
- Swedish : topographic or ornamental name, from ek ‘oak’.