The horn Surname
horn Name Meaning and History
- English, Scottish, German, and Dutch: from Middle English, Middle High German, Middle Dutch horn ‘horn’, applied in a variety of senses: as a metonymic occupational name for someone who made small articles, such as combs, spoons, and window lights, out of horn; as a metonymic occupational name for someone who played a musical instrument made from the horn of an animal; as a topographic name for someone who lived by a horn-shaped spur of a hill or tongue of land in a bend of a river, or a habitational name from any of the places named with this element (for example, in England, Horne in Surrey on a spur of a hill and Horn in Rutland in a bend of a river); as a nickname, perhaps referring to some feature of a person’s physical appearance, or denoting a cuckolded husband.
- Norwegian: habitational name from any of several farmsteads so named, from Old Norse horn ‘horn’, ‘spur of land’.
- Swedish: ornamental or topographic name from horn ‘horn’, ‘spur of land’.
- Jewish (Ashkenazic): presumably from German Horn ‘horn’, adopted as a surname for reasons that are not clear. It may be purely ornamental, or it may refer to the ram’s horn (Hebrew shofar) blown in the Synagogue during various ceremonies.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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