Bayer Family History

German, Scandinavian, and Jewish (Ashkenazic): habitational name for someone from Bavaria (German Bayern). This region of southern Germany derives its name from that of the Celtic tribe of the Boii who once inhabited this area. They were displaced in the 6th century AD by an ancient Germanic people, the Boioarii or Baiuarii, whose name is derived from that of their Celtic predecessors. This surname is also found in France (Alsace and Lorraine), Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, and Poland. Compare Beyer and Payer.

English (Lincolnshire): occupational name for a maker of baize cloth, from an agent derivative of Old French baies, Middle English bayes (from the adjective bai ‘reddish-brown, bay’), probably so called because of its original color. This material was said to have been introduced into Britain by immigrants from France and the Netherlands in the 16th century, but the word certainly appears much earlier in English.

The surname may also be topographic, denoting a ‘dweller by the bend’, from an agent derivative of Old English bēag ‘bend’. Dutch: variant of Baijer, a cognate of 1 above.