Family name origins & meanings
- English : occupational name for a scholar or schoolmaster, from an agent derivative of Middle English lern(en), which meant both ‘to learn’ and ‘to teach’ (Old English leornian).
- South German : habitational name for someone from Lern near Freising.
- South German : nickname from Middle High German lerner ‘pupil’, ‘schoolboy’.
- Jewish (Ashkenazic) : occupational name from Yiddish lerner ‘Talmudic student or scholar’.