Tatar Family History
Tatar Name Meaning
Polish Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) and Turkish: Czech and Slovak (also Tatár); Hungarian (Tatár); Romanian (Tătar): ethnic name nickname or as a Turkish name ornamental name meaning ‘Tatar’. The Tatars are a Turkic-speaking peoples living mainly in Russia and also in some neighboring countries. In the past the name Tatar also denoted an Azerbaijani (see Tatarian ). In some languages e.g. Czech the word tatar came to be used as a nickname for a wild or uncontrolled man while in 18th-century Hungary it became a nickname for a godless person. In Turkish the word tatar also means ‘courier’. In some cases the name was given to people who had been captured by the Tatars.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022