Family name origins & meanings
- German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : metonymic occupational name for an ironworker or smith, or an ironmonger, from Middle High German īsen ‘iron’, German Eisen. It may also have been used as a nickname, with reference to the strength and hardness of iron or to its color, while as a Jewish name it was also adopted as an ornamental name from modern German Eisen ‘iron’ or the Yiddish cognate ayzn.