Origin
Pierce : 1: English Welsh and Irish: from the Anglo-Norman French and Middle English personal name Piers Peres Peris an Old French nominative of Pierre or Per the French form of Peter. Pierce is especially frequent in northwestern Wales and Lancashire while Pearce is the more common spelling in the rest of England. In Ireland Pierce and Pearse represent a shortened Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Piarais ‘son of Piaras’ a Gaelicized form of Piers.2: Americanized form of some similar-sounding Jewish surname.
Dagwell : probably for a wolf-hunter from Middle English daggen ‘to pierce with a pointed weapon’ (such as a dagger) + Middle English wolf. Weakly stressed -wolf has been reduced to /wəl/ and re-etymologized as -well as though it were a locative name.
Darter : 1: English: apparently an occupational name from an agent noun from Middle English darten ‘to pierce with a dart’ and perhaps ‘to plant (vines)’.2: Americanized form of German Dötter (see Dotter). Compare Tarter.
Percival : English:: 1: from the Middle English and Old French personal name Perceval first found as the name of the hero of an epic poem by the 12th-century French poet Crestien de Troyes describing the quest for the holy grail. The origin of the name is uncertain; it may be associated with the Gaulish personal name Pritorīx or it may be an altered form of the Celtic name Peredur (see Priddy). It seems to have been altered as the result of folk etymological association with Old French perce(r) ‘to pierce or breach’ + val ‘valley’.2: (of Norman origin): habitational name from either of two places called Perceval in Calvados Normandy (France).
Percy : English (of Norman origin):: 1: nickname from Old French percehaie ‘pierce hedge’ (Old French percer ‘to pierce penetrate’ + haie ‘hedge fence’) perhaps with the sense of someone breaking into an enclosure. Percehaie is the name of one of the sons of the foxes Renart and Hermeline in the medieval French epic Roman de Renart whose earliest known version is from the 1170s. The surname is older than that but it may originate in a nickname for the fox as ‘enclosure piercer’ perhaps amounting to ‘chicken thief’.2: habitational name from any of several places called Percy in Calvados Eure and Manche; William de Perci the Domesday tenant-in-chief and under-tenant of Hugh Earl of Chester came from either Percy-en-Auge (Eure) or Percy (Manche).
Sticker : 1: German: occupational name for an embroiderer (see Seidensticker).2: German: occupational name for a worker who shapes and sets stakes vineyards from Middle High German stickel ‘pointed stick post’.3: English (Middlesex): occupational name from an agent derivative of Middle English stikke ‘stick twig wooden rod’ (Old English sticca) for someone who gathered firewood. In Clarendon Park persons called ‘stikkers’ were appointed ‘to go about in the said park and gather dry underwood’.4: English (Middlesex): occupational name from an agent derivative of Middle English stike(n) ‘(to) stab thrust pierce kill with a knife’ (Old English stician) perhaps for a butcher.5: English (Middlesex): nickname for someone who hunted or butchered hares from Middle English stike(n) ‘(to) kill with a knife’ (Old English stician) + hare ‘hare’ (Old English hara).
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Source : DAFN2 : Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, ©2022 by Patrick Hanks and Oxford University Press
FANBI : The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain, ©2021, University of the West of England
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