Farmer

Why is the surname Farmer so uncommon when there were large numbers of farmers for so long? Is it because most of them were tenant farmers, and the actual ...

In the Netherlands, the surname “De Boer” (“the Farmer”) is one of the most common names in the country. It may be because the word “farmer”, which in the Greek original means “earth worker”, geōrgos (γεωργός), was first used as an etymological pun as a nickname for George III (1738-1820) AKA “Farmer” George. In Danish many non-patronymic surnames come from specific farms (gård or gaard), such as in the case of philosopher Kierkegaard (church farm) or my own, Storgaard (big farm). I’ve just read that the etymology of the surname Cole is probably linked to the Latin “cola”, as in agri-cola. The basic sense of fermier (not fermeur) is “holder of a firm-price lease”, whether the lease is for the exploitation of tax collection or land cultivation. A farmer might be named Ackerman (acre man – a ploughman) or Cotter (related to cottage) or Bond (bondsman, bondage, bound to the land), Mather (mower, as in aftermath, a second crop), or other specific terms. In the agricultural realm, fermier is distinguished from métayer, someone whose lease is paid on the basis of a half-share of the crop. It’s a warping of the original French word fermeur, a collector of tithes for the king. The tall one (Long), the red-headed one (Russell), the one who lived on the Hill or by the Lake, Thomas’s son, Will’s son, the inexplicably teetotal one (Drinkwater) and so on. A general name developed from small farms on which a jack of all trades may have made a living with many different products may have been Croft or, in the case of rented land, Tenant and Granger are names that are descriptive of working the land. Where everyone farmed to some extent in order to stay alive, there would be no point in referring to someone as (the) farmer. People called Potter, Fletcher or Cooper were presumably the only (or most well-known) makers of pottery, arrows or barrels in the community.