German and Dutch: from Middle High German meier, a
status name for a steward, bailiff, or overseer, which later came to
be used also to denote a tenant farmer, which is normally the sense in
the many compound surnames formed with this term as a second element.
Originally it denoted a village headman (ultimately from Latin
maior ‘greater’, ‘superior’).Jewish (Ashkenazic): from
the Yiddish personal name Meyer (from Hebrew Meir
‘enlightener’, a derivative of Hebrew or ‘light’).Irish: Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Meidhir, from
meidhir ‘mirth’.Danish: variant spelling of
Meier 3.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
2,329,494
Historical Documents & Family Trees with Meyer
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The information for this chart came from the U.S. Immigration Collection at Ancestry.co.uk.
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