This German surname of SWICK was of three-fold origin. It was a habitation name for someone who came from ZWICKAU (the market town), a city and district in Saxony; one who made and sold nails; the descendant of SWIDIGER meaning 'strong spear'. Other spellings of the name include ZWICKY, ZWICKEY, SWICKER, SWICKE, SWICKER, SWACKE and SWACKER. Habitation names were originally acquired by the original bearer of the name, who, having lived by, at or near a place, would then take that name as a form of identification for himself and his family. When people lived close to the soil as they did in the Middle Ages, they were acutely conscious of every local variation in landscape and countryside. Every field or plot of land was identified in normal conversation by a descriptive term. If a man lived on or near a hill or mountain, or by a river or stream, forests and trees, he might receive the word as a family name. Almost every town, city or village in early times, has served to name many families. Many of the modern family names throughout Europe reflect the profession or occupation of their forbears in the Middle Ages and derive from the position held by their ancestors in the village, noble household or religious community in which they lived and worked. The addition of their profession to their birth name made it easier to identify individual tradesmen and craftsmen. As generations passed and families moved around, so the original identifying names developed into the corrupted but simpler versions that we recognise today. Fritz ZWICKY (1898-1974) was the physicist, born in Varna, Bulgaria. He studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, then took a position at the California Institute of Technology in 1925, becoming professor of astrophysics there (1942-68). Surnames which were derived from ancient Germanic personal names have the same meaning in many languages. The court of Charlemagne (Charles the Great, king of the Franks (742-814) was Christian and Latin speaking). The vernacular was the Frankish dialect of Old High German, and the personal names in use were Germanic and vernacular. These names were adopted in many parts of northwest Europe, particularly among the noble ruling classes. Hereditary surnames were found in Germany in the second half of the 12th century - a little later than in England and France. It was about the 16th century that they became stabilized.