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.