Updated June 9, 2019

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Family name origins & meanings

  • German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : from modern German and Yiddish gut, Middle High German guot ‘good’ or ‘capable’. This may be a nickname, but in the Middle Ages the term also denoted a freeman or a vassal of noble birth, and the surname may be a status name from this sense. As a Jewish surname it is often ornamental. Compare Gutman.