Family name origins & meanings
- English : occupational name for a moneyer, Old English myntere, an agent derivative of mynet ‘coin’, from Late Latin moneta ‘money’, originally an epithet of the goddess Juno (meaning ‘counselor’, from monere ‘advise’), at whose temple in Rome the coins were struck. The English term was used at an early date to denote a workman who stamped the coins; later it came to denote the supervisors of the mint, who were wealthy and socially elevated members of the merchant class, and who were made responsible for the quality of the coinage by having their names placed on the coins.