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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : variant of Ayer.
  • English : topographic name for someone who lived by an enclosure, Middle English hay (see Hay 1) + the suffix -er(e) denoting an inhabitant.
  • French : occupational name for a warder of woodland, from an agent derivative of Old French haye ‘hedge’, ‘enclosed forest’.
  • South German : from an agent derivative of Middle High German heien ‘to guard or protect’, hence an occupational name for a warden of woodland or crops.
  • Indian (Panjab) : Sikh name based on the name of a Jat clan, also called Her.

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