Date
Meaning & History
Transferred use of the surname Tasman. Used in honour of the 17th century Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who claimed the island now known as Tasmania in 1642. Many places in Australia and New Zealand are named after him, most notably the Tasman Sea which lies between the two countries. Tasman is a Dutch form of the German surname Tessmann, derived from both Slavic and German. Slavonic personal names such as Techmir, meaning “consolation”, become Tess in German. The -mann part of the name usually means “servant of”. So Tasman means “servant of Techmir”.