This website is not about bongs…you know the sort of devices used for smoking cannabis, tobacco, or other substances… 😀
No, Bongers is a Dutch family name. It could be derived from an old profession bonge, bommenaar, bongenaar or bonger which in old Dutch were all words meaning ‘drummer’: a person that, several centuries ago, made public announcements using a drum.
It could also be derived from the Dutch words ‘bongerd’ or in more modern Dutch: ‘boomgaard’. Here it is a variant of Van den Boo(m)gaard: living in a place known as the ‘boomgaard’, in connection with a piece of land or a garden with fruit or ornamental trees. In English: an orchard.
In any case I don’t know. I did read the earliest -known- ‘bongers ancestor’ has lived from 1701 to 1747 in the Dutch village named ‘Velp’ located just east of Arnhem in The Netherlands. 🙂
