Starr Family History

English: from Middle English sterre ‘star’ (Old English steorra) used like the Old Norse Stjarna as a nickname but also occasionally as a personal name. The word was also used in a transferred sense of a patch of white hair on the forehead of a horse and so perhaps the nickname denoted someone with a streak of white hair. This surname has been established in Ireland since the 17th century.

English: in addition the name may occasionally also have been topographic or habitational referring to a house or inn distinguished by the sign of a star (see 2 above). Surnames derived from house and inn signs are rare in English.

Jewish (Ashkenazic): variant of Star 1 and in some cases also an American shortened and altered form of Slovenian Stare or of some other Slovenian, Croatian, or Serbian surname beginning with Star- ‘old’ such as Slovenian Starc (see Startz) Serbian and Croatian Starčević (see Starcevic).