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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : habitational name from Holmer in Buckinghamshire and Herefordshire, both named with Old English hol ‘hollow’ + mere ‘pool’.
  • English : topographic name for someone who lived either on a piece of slightly raised land lying in a fen or partly surrounded by streams or where holly grew, from a derivative of Middle English holm (see Holm 1 and 2).
  • Swedish, Danish, and North German (Schleswig-Holstein) : topographic name for someone who lived on an island (see Holm).

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