Do you know what country these names are from?

Question

The names are Fisher, Miller, and Rhew. The Rhew came from an ancestor who was Eskimo, but I don't know where it originally came from. I suspect Fisher is German but I am not entirely sure.

Answer 1

Fisher can be English or German. Same with Miller. There is a mix of these names with both English and German origin in New York and Pennsylvania. The Germans arrived in several waves after 1709 from the German Palitinate and many of the surnames were anglicized over the years. The only real way to verify the origin of the names is to trace your ancestors back.

fisher
English: occupational name for a fisherman, Middle English fischer. The name has also been used in Ireland as a loose equivalent of Braden. As an American family name, this has absorbed cognates and names of similar meaning from many other European languages, including German Fischer, Dutch Visser, Hungarian Halász, Italian Pescatore, Polish Rybarz, etc.
In a few cases, the English name may in fact be a topographic name for someone who lived near a fish weir on a river, from the Old English term fisc-gear ‘fish weir’.
Jewish (Ashkenazic): occupational name for a fisherman, Yiddish fisher, German Fischer.
Irish: translation of Gaelic Ó Bradáin ‘descendant of Bradán’, a personal name meaning ‘salmon’. See Braden.
Mistranslation of French Poissant, meaning ‘powerful’, but understood as poisson ‘fish’ (see Poisson), and assimilated to the more frequent English name.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4


miller
English and Scottish: occupational name for a miller. The standard modern vocabulary word represents the northern Middle English term, an agent derivative of mille ‘mill’, reinforced by Old Norse mylnari (see Milner). In southern, western, and central England Millward (literally, ‘mill keeper’) was the usual term. The American surname has absorbed many cognate surnames from other European languages, for example French Meunier, Dumoulin, Demoulins, and Moulin; German Mueller; Dutch Molenaar; Italian Molinaro; Spanish Molinero; Hungarian Molnár; Slavic Mlinar, etc.
Southwestern and Swiss German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): variant of Müller (see Mueller).
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4


rhew
Perhaps an altered spelling of English Rew (a variant of Row), French Rue, or German Ruh.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4

Answer 2

Fisher and Miller are German. The best place to locate the info you seek is the good ole Public Library! They can also show you what webpages to go for any info. Books on surname origin are in Reference. If you're in the area where these ancestors lived do what I did. Look up all persons with the same last name in the Death Index to see if any list an country of origin.

Answer 3

Fisher and Miller sound as if they could be English. Rhew is a mystery. German, perhaps? Was that the original spelling? Many names were changed over the years, sometimes due to the languages changing, sometimes because when the family emigrated to a new country, the officials couldn't spell them.

Answer 4

Fisher and Miller can be just about anything, they were so common. They're usually English or Scottish, though these particular two are just as often German. Rhew is English, from an Old English word meaning row, as in someone who lived in a row of houses, instead of in a farmhouse by itself. It's VERY Cornish, meaning Cornwall, not corny.

Answer 5

Miller sounds English, so does Fisher...if Fisher was spelled 'Fischer' then it would be likely it came from Germany!! And the 'i' would probably have had two dots on top of it instead of one!! That's how most German words are!!

Answer 6

Fisher and Miller are both English surnames.

Answer 7

I think they are norse names...like: Ben Forkbeard or probably Gallic.

Answer 8

try . looking in iceland for these names . my opion ?