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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : (of Norman origin): nickname from Old French beu, bel ‘fair’, ‘lovely’ + chere ‘face’, ‘countenance’. Although it originally meant ‘face’, the word chere later came to mean also ‘demeanor’, ‘disposition’ (hence English cheer), and the nickname may thus also have denoted a person of pleasant, cheerful disposition. There has been some confusion with Bowser.
  • English : nickname for someone given to belching. See Balch.
  • English : Andrew Belcher came before 1654 from London, England, to Cambridge, MA, where he kept a tavern. His family was originally from Wiltshire. His descendant Jonathan Belcher (1682–1757), a weathy merchant, was governor of MA and NH. Subsequently, as governor of NJ, he was one of the founders of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton).

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