Family name origins & meanings
- German : topographic name for someone who lived in a valley or ravine, or near a mountain stream, Middle High German klinge ‘murmuring brook’. There are many places named with this word, and the surname may also be a habitational name from any of them.
- North German : topographic name for someone living near a ford or on boggy moorland, from Low German klinge ‘ford’, ‘muddy heath’, or a habitational name from Klinge in Schleswig-Holstein, Klingen, or any of several other places containing the element klinge ‘ford’.
- German and Danish : metonymic occupational name for a cutler or swordsmith, from Middle High German klinge ‘metal blade’, ‘sword’ (a later imitative derivative of klingen ‘to ring or clatter’).
- Dutch and Belgian : topographic name meaning ‘valley’ or habitational name from places named Klinge in East Flanders and Zeeland.
- Swedish : variant of Kling.