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Updated June 9, 2019

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’.

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