MARK STAUFFER

From the Latin name Marcus, borne by the Evangelist, author of the second gospel in the New Testament, and by several other early and medieval saints. In Arthurian legend, King Mark is the aged ruler of Cornwall to whom Isolde is brought as a bride by Tristan; his name was presumably of Celtic origin, perhaps derived from the element march ‘horse’. This was not a particularly common name in the Middle Ages but was in more frequent use by the end of the 16th century.

South German: 1. occupational name for a maker or seller of beakers or mugs, from an agent derivative of Middle High German stouf ‘beaker’, ‘stoup’. 2. habitational name for someone from any of the various minor places named with this word, for example Stauf, Staufen; the reference is to hills thought to resemble a beaker in shape.