Kasner

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A German-origin family name, borne by people such as the American mathematician Edward who popularized the term googol
2. A surname of German origin, carried by individuals including the mathematician Edward who coined the word googol
3. A family name of German origin, notably that of the American mathematician Edward credited with naming the googol

Etymology: Kasner is a German family surname, and the facts about its origin are thin, so the most useful thing to say is what it is not. It is not a word with a documented sense of its own in English or German, and no reliable record ties it to a particular occupation or place with confidence. Surnames of this kind often arose from trades, locations, or nicknames, but nothing specific can be asserted about this one without evidence. The name is best known through people who carried it. Abraham Gotthelf Kästner, the eighteenth-century German mathematician and epigrammatist, is spelled with an umlaut, and the unmodified form "Kasner" is a separate, related spelling in the same family of German names. The most widely cited bearer of the surname in English-language mathematics is Edward Kasner, the American mathematician who in 1940 coined the word "googol" with his nephew Milton Sirotta, a detail that connects the surname to a term now found in dictionaries.