Lever Family History
Lever Name Meaning
English (of Norman origin): nickname for a fleet-footed or timid person from Old French levre ‘hare’ (from Latin lepus genitive leporis). It may also have been a metonymic occupational name for a hunter of hares. English: topographic name for someone who lived in a place thickly grown with rushes from Old English lǣfer ‘rush reed iris’. Compare Laver . Great and Little Lever in Greater Manchester are named with this word (in a collective sense) so the surname may also be a habitational name from these places. Dutch and North German: from the medieval personal names Lever a variant of Liever (see Lieber ) and Levert a variant of Lievert (see Liebhart ). This surname is very rare in Germany. Slovenian: variant of Levar and in North America probably also an altered form of this.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022