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Updated June 9, 2019

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’.

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