Family name origins & meanings
- Translation of French Lemieux.
- English : nickname from Old English bētere ‘fighter’, ‘beater’. Reaney suggests it may also be a short form of the various occupational names ending with -better, for example Leadbetter.
- German (Bavarian) : metonymic occupational name for a maker of rosaries, from Bavarian better ‘rosary’ (from beten ‘to pray’).