Lever Family History

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.