Origin and popularity of the name CHAMBERS

Origin

Chambers : English:: 1: from Middle English chaumbre ‘room (in a house); reception room in a palace or official building’ (Old French chambre). It is identical in implied function with the Chamberlain which denoted an official: to pay in cameram was to pay into the exchequer of which the camerarius or chamberer was in charge. The surname also applied to clerks employed there. As the office of Chamberlain rose in the social scale this term remained reserved for more humble servants of the bedchamber or private quarters.2: (of Norman origin): habitational name from Les Chambres Manche (France).

Chamberlain : English: status name from Old French chambrelain Norman French cambrelanc cambrelen(c) ‘chamberlain’ (of ancient Germanic origin from kamer ‘chamber room’ Latin camera (see Chambers) + the diminutive suffix -(l)ing). This was originally the name of an official in charge of the private chambers of his master but is so widespread in late medieval England that it must sometimes have been used of people of more ordinary status perhaps as a nickname for an officious or self-important person or for someone who played the role of chamberlain in a folk play tableau or ceremony. Compare Chancellor for a possible similar usage.

Chamberlin : 1: English: variant of Chamberlain.2: French: occupational name for an official in charge of the private chambers of his master from Old French chamberlenc ‘chamberlain’. See also Chamberlain and compare above.

Theiler : Swiss German and German: from an agent derivative of Teilen ‘division dividing’ an occupational name for someone responsible for supervising or acting in the division of merchandise (cutting up of cloth in merchants' chambers an activity known as Teilen apportioning the proceeds of cheese-making of a mountain dairy among the participants etc.).

Wilcott : English (Somerset and Gloucestershire): habitational name from Willicote in Clifford Chambers (Gloucestershire). The placename derives from Old English wilig ‘willow’ + cot ‘cottage hut shelter’. In some cases perhaps an altered form of Wilcock.

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Last name frequency

Geographic distribution of the 68,547 individuals with the name CHAMBERS on Geneanet.

This last name in the family trees

See below the Geneanet members' family trees which contain the last name CHAMBERS