Family name origins & meanings
- German : from Scarius, from a short form of a Germanic compound name formed with skar- ‘army’, ‘cutting weapon’ as the first element, which in the Middle Ages provided a nickname for someone working on a team due to a feudal obligation and also a metonymic occupational name for someone working with plowshares.
- Dutch : metonymic occupational name for a shearer, knife grinder, or tailor, from schaar, plural scharen ‘shears’.
- Dutch (Van der Schaar) : topographic name from schare, schaar ‘bank’, ‘dike’.