Yeoman Family History

English and Scottish: status name from Middle English yoman yeman used of an attendant of relatively high status in a noble household ranking between a Sergeant and a Groom or between a Squire and a Page.

The word probably originated as a shortened form of Middle English yonge man. Later in the Middle English period it came to be used of a modest independent freeholder and this latter sense may well lie behind some examples of the surname.

In Scotland by the 16th century it had come to denote a landholder next in rank below a gentleman specifically one who owned land worth at least forty shillings a year.