Family name origins & meanings
- North German : topographic name for someone who lived by an alder tree, from Middle Low German elre, alre ‘alder’.
- German : habitational name from places in the North Rhine and Mosel areas, so called from an old stream name Elera, Alira, of Celtic origin.
- Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : variant of Heller, reflecting varieties of Yiddish in which there is no h.