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The knickerbocker Surname

knickerbocker Name Meaning and History

Americanized spelling of the Dutch occupational name Knickerbacker ‘marble baker’, i.e., a baker of children’s clay marbles. This lowly occupation became synonymous with the patrician class in NYC through Washington Irving’s attribution of his History of New York (1809) to a fictitious author named Diedrich Knickerbocker. By the late 1850s the term had also come to denote a type of loose breeches gathered below the knee, evidently because of the resemblance of the garment to the breeches of the Dutchmen in Cruikshank’s illustrations to Irving’s book.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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The knickerbocker name in History

A unique volume of fascinating facts, statistics and commentary following the knickerbocker family name as far back in history as possible.

knickerbocker Family Facts

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Distribution of knickerbocker Families in the US in 1920
Number of knickerbocker families
 56-110
 19-55		 1-18
 0
Compiled by Ancestry.com from the 1920 US Federal Census records

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