Family name origins & meanings
- Altered form of French Vasseur, a status name for a vassal in feudal society, from Old French vasseor, vasseur ‘vassal’. Compare French Levasseur.
- Matthew Vassar (1792–1868), brewer and founder of Vassar College, was born at East Tuddingham, Norfolk, England, and came to Dutchess Co., NY, as a child in 1796. The family were originally French Huguenots called Vasseur, who fled to England in the late 17th century, to escape the persecution of Protestants in France following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.