Last name: WEIR

Back
Welcome at Geneanet!

Welcome at Geneanet!

With Geneanet, find your ancestors from home, create your family tree for free, and explore and share your family history. Genealogy has never been easier, thanks to our database of 8 billion individuals, and our community of enthusiasts.

Discover Geneanet

All you have to know about the last name WEIR

Last name frequency

WEIR : This last name is indexed 152,209 times on Geneanet!

Origin of last name

WEIR : 1: Scottish and English: topographic name for someone who lived by a dam or weir on a river from Middle English Older Scots wer(e) ‘weir; fish-trap’. Compare Ware and Wear. In northern England and lowland Scotland there has been much confusion with the Irish and Scottish Gaelic names in 2 4 and 5 below.2: Scottish: in Scotland this surname was sometimes used for Gaelic Mac an Mhaoir ‘son of the steward’ more often Anglicized as McNair.3: Scottish (of Norman origin): surname of a family of Blackwood (Lanarkshire) which is said to be descended from Ralph de Ver a Norman baron associated with William the Lion between 1174 and 1184. The change in pronunciation from Vere to Were would be unusual in Anglo-Norman French and the true source of the surname may lie elsewhere. One possibility is Wierre in Pas-de-Calais. Another possibility is that the surname may represent versions of the Norman surname de la Were ‘of the war’ a nickname for a warrior; see Warr.4: Irish: shortened Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac an Mhaoir ‘son of the steward’ (see McNair). This surname was formerly Anglicized as McMoyer whence Moyers. In Scotland it more often became McNair.5: Irish: Anglicized form based on an erroneous translation (as if from Gaelic cora ‘weir stepping stones’) of various Gaelic names such as Ó Corra and Ó Comhraidhe (see Corr and Curry).

Learn more

Variants of last name

The spelling of names may have changed over the centuries. Knowing these names variants will help you build your family tree.

Search a name

Discover your ancestors and build your family tree step by step through billions of data included in our members' family trees and through civil records.

Most popular first names

Most indexed places

Most indexed countries

Available collections for this name