Fisherman meaning | Last name Fisherman origin

Variation of Fischer. One who caught or sold fish.

The family name Fisherman is the modification of the Fish. See Fishes - It is difficult to account for the adoption of the designations of fishes as proper names for persons and families. A few, such as Dolphin, Pike, and Crabbe, may have been borrowed from Heraldry; and others, such as Whale, Shark, and Herring, were perhaps sobriquets which having been applied to an individual afterwards adhered to his descendants.

Fisherman is variation of the Fisher. This seems to be a sufficiently obvious derivation from the calling of a fisherman, especially since 'fisher' occurs in our version of the New Testamen in this sense; and Leland in his Itinerary usually describes the smaller sea-coast places as "fischar tounes." In Domesday and other early records, we meet with the forms Piscator, Le Pecheur, etc. There is, however, curious evidence that some families bearing this name are descendants of Fitz-Urse, one of the assassins of Thomas à Becket. Fitz-Urse is said to have gone over to Ireland, and there to have become ancestor of the Mac Mahon family—Mac Mahon being the Celtic equivalent of 'Bear's son;' but other branches of the family remained in England, and gradually corrupted the family name thus; Fitzour, Fishour, Fisher. The great Kentish family of Berham, or Barham, is also deduced by Philipot,Harris, and other Kentish historians from the same source—apparently upon the strength of the first syllable of that name resembling the word bear, (Ourse—Ursus). See .