Family name origins & meanings
- English : variant of Brewster.
- English : occupational name for an embroiderer, Middle English broudestere (from Old French brouder ‘to embroider’, of Germanic origin). The suffix -ster(e) was originally feminine, but by the Middle English period was being used interchangeably for both men and women in words like Brewster and Baxter, and in some regions such as East Anglia was the standard occupational suffix for men as well as women. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that men did very much embroidery.
- Swiss German : variant of Brust 2, the suffix -er denoting an inhabitant.