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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • North German : topographic name for someone who lived by a bog or marsh, from Frisian fehn ‘bog’, related to Dutch veen.
  • Norwegian : habitational name from any of three farms in southeastern Norway named Fen, probably from Old Norse Fávin, of which the second element is vin ‘meadow’; the first element is unexplained.

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