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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • German : habitational name for someone from any of several places called Spier (named with the old element spir ‘(muddy) water’), notably Speyer (see Spier 4).
  • German : metonymic occupational name for a fisherman, from Middle Low German spiring denoting a small salt-water fish; in some instances the surname may have arisen as a nickname for someone thought to resemble the fish.

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