When Heinrich Wagner was born on 6 January 1888, in Pressig, Kronach, Bavaria, Germany, his father, Adam Wagner, was 27 and his mother, Johanna Margaretha Spaethling, was 27. He married Margaretha Knopf on 12 May 1913. He died on 7 January 1953, at the age of 65.
German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) (also Wägner): occupational name for a carter and (in some dialects) a cartwright, from an agent derivative of Middle High German wagen ‘cart, wagon’, German Wagen. This surname is also established in many other parts of Europe, notably in France (Alsace and Lorraine), Britain, Poland, and Denmark. In Hungary it is mostly spelled Wágner and Vágner. In Russia, Czechia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Slovakia it is also found in the Slavicized form Vagner . Compare Wagener , Waggener , and Wagoner .
Dutch and perhaps also English: occupational name from Middle Dutch waghenaer ‘carter’ (compare 1 above). The Dutch word is not known to have been borrowed into English before 1600 but the surname Wagner is recorded in Norfolk (England) from 1379, perhaps a substitution of the Dutch word for Middle English wainer. Compare Waggoner .
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