Transylvanian Saxons
The ancestors of the family emigrated in the High Middle Ages from the western area of present-day Germany to south-east Transylvania, part of a group of German colonists (Transylvanian Saxons) invited by the Hungarian kings to settle near the eastern border of their kingdom. The initial name of the family was Schöchter(t). In the Moselle Franconian dialect (the base of the German dialect spoken by the Transylvanian Saxons), "Schöchtert" means a wooden milking pail and a "Schöchter" is a cooper who manufactures milking pails.