Stocker Family History

German and Swiss German (also Stöcker): topographic name for someone living by a tree stump (see Stock) or an occupational name for a tree cutter from Middle High German stocken ‘to clear land’. German and Swiss German (also Stöcker); Dutch: occupational name from Middle High German Middle Dutch stocker ‘jailer’.

English: occupational name from Middle English stokker ‘one who sells stockfish’ (fish dried in the air without salt). This was the usual source of the name in medieval London where a bylaw of 1419 stated that no stokker should board a ship to buy fish (presumably in order to forestall the market).

English: topographic name for someone who lived by a tree stump or a log structure such as a footbridge or at a place called Stock deriving from Middle English stok(ke) stok(e) ‘tree trunk tree stump’ (Old English stocc) + -er (see Stock).

The topographic name is found mainly in southern England especially Sussex, Surrey, Kent, and Hampshire but also in the South Midlands. English: variant of Stoker.

Irish: from Mac an Stocaire ‘son of the trumpeter’.