Crane surname meaning

Crane is an English nickname most likely for a tall, thin person with long legs, from Middle English cran, “crane,” the bird (Old English cran/cron). Until a separate word for heron spread in the fourteenth century, cran could cover that bird as well. Related or translated forms include Manx Craine, Dutch Krane, and Americanized German Krahn or Kranich. Crain is a frequent spelling variant. Nickname is high confidence for the English bird-byname that DAFN puts first; Dutch and German crane names are parallel animal nicknames that often arrived in American records already spelled Crane.