Usher

Family name origins & meanings

• English, Scottish, and Irish : occupational name for a janitor or gatekeeper, Middle English usher (Anglo-Norman French usser, Old French ussier, huissier, from Late Latin ustiarius, a derivative of classical Latin ostium ‘door’, ‘gate’). The term was also used in the Middle Ages of a court official charged with accompanying a person of rank on ceremonial occasions, and this may be a partial souce of the surname. This surname has been recorded in Ireland since the 14th century, and has sometimes been used as an equivalent of Hession.
• Jewish (from Poland and Ukraine) : from a southern Yiddish pronunciation of the Yiddish male personal name Osher (Hebrew Asher).
• Hezekiah Usher (d. 1676) is buried in King’s Chapel Burying Ground, Boston, MA.

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