Origin and popularity of the name MATHER

Origin

Mather : English:: 2: occupational name for a mower or reaper of grass or hay Old English mǣthere. Compare Mead Mower. Hay was formerly of great importance not only as feed for animals in winter but also for bedding.1: variant of Mader reflecting an alternative pronunciation influenced by Old Norse mathra ‘madder (plant)’.3: in southern Lancashire where it has long been a common surname it is probably a relatively late development of Madder (see Mader).4: possibly from the Middle English personal name Mather (Old English Mǣthhere from mæthel ‘speech’ + here ‘army’) but there is no evidence that this gave rise to a hereditary surname.

Madder : from Middle English *mader *madour *mather reduced forms of Middle English maderer *maderour *matherer ‘seller of madder’ or ‘dyer who used madder’. Compare Rob. Madster 1332 in Assize Rolls (Lancs) whose name appears to be a similarly reduced form of the variant *maderster with the suffix -ster subsituted for -er as in Webster for Webber. Mader or mather (Old English mædere Old Scandinavian maðra) was the name for the plant Rubia tinctorum used medicinally and for making red dye. It was also a word for red dye made from other sources. The surname is more commonly found as Mather in post-medieval records.

Mader : 1: English: variant of Madder an occupational name for a dyer or seller of dye from Middle English mader madour mather shortened forms of Middle English maderer maderour matherer ‘seller of madder’ or ‘dyer who used madder’. Mader or mather (Old English mædere Old Norse mathra) was the name for the plant Rubia tinctorum used medicinally and for making red dye. It was also a word for red dye made from other sources. Compare Mather.2: German and Swiss German (also Mäder) Dutch and French (Lorraine): occupational name for a reaper or mower Middle High German māder mæder Middle Dutch mader. Compare Moder.3: French: metonymic occupational name for a carpenter from Occitan madier ‘beam’.

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Last name frequency

Geographic distribution of the 21,830 individuals with the name MATHER on Geneanet.

This last name in the family trees

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