Stein

Boy name variations

Family name origins & meanings

• German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : from German Stein ‘rock’, Middle High German stein, hence a topographic name either for someone who lived on stony ground or for someone who lived by a notable outcrop of rock or by a stone boundary marker or monument. It could also be a metonymic occupational name for a mason or stonecutter, or, among Jews, an ornamental name.
• Dutch : from a reduced form of the personal name Augustijn (see Austin).
• Norwegian : habitational name from any of ten or more farmsteads, notably in southeastern Norway, so named from Old Norse steinn ‘stone’.
• Scottish : from a reduced form of the personal name Steven (see Steen, Steven).
• Northern English and Scottish : from the Old Norse personal name Steinn meaning ‘stone’.
• Southern English : habitational name from a place named with Old English stǣne ‘stony place’, for example Stein in Sussex or Steane in Northamptonshire.