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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • North German and Dutch : from Middle Low German puls, pulsstock, Middle Dutch puls, pols, a wooden pole used to stir the water and drive fish into a net, hence a metonymic occupational name name for someone who used this method of fishing.
  • North German : habitational name from a place so named in Schleswig-Holstein.
  • Dutch : from Middle Dutch pulle ‘jug’, ‘pitcher’, ‘vase’; a nickname for a portly individual or a metonymic occupational name for a maker of earthenware or metal vessels.
  • German (of Slavic origin) : from a personal name formed with Old Slavic bolij ‘more’.

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