Dicker Family History

English: occupational name for a digger of ditches or a builder of dikes from Middle English dicher diker ‘digger of ditches or dykes’ or a topographic name for someone who lived by a ditch or dike (such as a defensive ditch round a town) from Middle English dik deke (Old English dīc) ‘ditch’ + -er. It was synonymous with Middle English atte Dike (see Dyke) and with Ditcher and Dickman. Topographical surnames in -er are characteristic of southern England.

English: habitational name from The Dicker the name of a common in Arlington Chiddingly and Hellingly in Sussex from Middle English dyker a unit of ten (from Latin decuria from decem ‘ten’) though the reason for the place being so named is not clear.

It has been suggested that the reference is to a bundle of iron rods in which sense dicras appears in the Domesday Book. Such a bundle could have been the rent for property in this iron-working area. Surname forms such as atte dicker occur in the surrounding region in the 13th and 14th centuries.

German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): variant of Dick 3 from an inflected form. German: variant of Dieker a topographic or an occupational name for someone who lived or worked at a dike.

Dutch: from the personal name Dickert or a vowel variant of Decker.