Hammer Family History

German, English, and Jewish (Ashkenazic): from Middle High German hamer; Yiddish hamer. This name is a metonymic occupational name for a maker or user of hammers, for example in a forge, or it can serve as a nickname for a forceful person.

As an English surname, the derivation from Middle English ham(m)er or hamor ‘hammer’ (Old English hamor) is formally possible, either as a metonymic occupational name or as a locative or occupational name taken from a shop sign or inn sign. However, there is no evidence that such appellations became hereditary surnames.

The surname of German origin (possibly also in the sense 2 below) is also found in France (Alsace and Lorraine). English and German: topographic name for someone who lived in an area of water meadow or flat, low-lying alluvial land beside a stream, derived from Middle English ham(me), Old English hamm, and Old High German ham (see Hamm) with the English and German agent suffix -er.

In England, names composed of a topographic term + -er are characteristic of southern England, especially Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire. English: possibly a variant of Hanmer and, in northern England, a variant of Hamer.

Norwegian: variant of Hamar. Additionally, it serves as a Germanized or Americanized form of Slovenian or Croatian Hamer ‘hammer’, which itself is of German origin (see 1 above).