Bach Family History

German: topographic name for someone who lived by a stream Middle High German bach ‘stream’. This surname is also found in some other European countries most notably in Denmark and France (Alsace and Lorraine) but also in e.g. the Netherlands, Czechia (see also 5 below), and Croatia.

Jewish (Ashkenazic): artificial name from German Bach ‘stream, creek’. English: topographic name for someone who lived by a stream Middle English bach(e), bech(e) ‘stream’ (Old English bæce).

Welsh: nickname, a distinguishing epithet from Welsh bach ‘little, small’. Polish, Czech, and Slovak: from the personal name Bach, a pet form of Bartholomaeus (Polish Bartłomiej, Czech Bartoloměj, Slovak Bartolomej; see Bartholomew) or, in some cases, Baltazar or Sebastian.

Americanized form of Norwegian Bakk or Bakke. Germanized or Americanized form of Slovenian Bah.

Chinese: variant Romanization of the surnames 白 and 柏 possibly based on their Cantonese pronunciation; see Bai 1 and 9. Vietnamese (Bạch): from the Chinese surname 白; see Bai.