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The brake Surname

brake Name Meaning and History

  1. English: topographic name for someone who lived by a clump of bushes or by a patch of bracken. Brake ‘thicket’ and brake ‘bracken’ were homonyms in Middle English. The first is from Old English bracu; the second is by folk etymology from northern Middle English braken, -en being taken as a plural ending. After the words had fallen together, their senses also became confused.
  2. North German: habitational name from any of several places so named, notably the town on the Weser, or a topographic name from Middle Low German brak ‘clearing’, ‘coppice’.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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brake Family Facts

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Distribution of brake Families in the US in 1920
Number of brake families
 35-67
 12-34
 1-11
 0
Compiled by Ancestry.com from the 1920 US Federal Census records

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