Kraft
A German surname meaning “strength” or “power,” usually taken from the German noun Kraft.
The #1,635 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 14,012 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Kraft is a German word meaning “strength,” “power,” or “force,” and the surname is generally understood as a nickname or descriptive name based on that quality. Historical surname writers also connect it with older Germanic forms and sometimes with related words for strength in Germanic languages. In some cases it may overlap with occupational or craft-related names, but the usual explanation is the German word for strength.
History
The name is well established in German-speaking areas and appears in older records in forms such as Kraft and related spellings. Nineteenth-century surname scholars often glossed it straightforwardly as a German nickname meaning “strength.” It also spread to English-speaking countries through immigration, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books liked to translate German names literally, so Kraft would sometimes be rendered in English as “Strength.”
From the historical record
“Creyf ; p.n. Craft. D. Kraft ; Dch., G. Kraft, Kroft; p.n. (strength) Cragg. A loc. n., Yorks. Or D. Krag ; a p.n. See Crack”
— British Family Names: their origin and meaning (2nd ed.)