Family name origins & meanings
- German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : nickname for a stranger or newcomer to a community, Middle High German gast ‘foreigner’, ‘guest’, ‘stranger’, German Gast.
- German and Swiss German : from a short form of a personal name Gastolf, or Alemannic from the personal name Arbogast.
- French : topographic name for someone who lived on a patch of waste land, Old French gast.