Baker Family History

English: occupational name from Middle English bakere Old English bæcere a derivative of bacan ‘to bake’. It may have been used for someone whose special task in the kitchen of a great house or castle was the baking of bread but since most humbler households did their own baking in the Middle Ages it may also have referred to the owner of a communal oven used by the whole village.

The right to be in charge of this and exact money or loaves in return for its use was in many parts of the country a hereditary feudal privilege. Compare Miller. Less often the surname may have been acquired by someone noted for baking particularly fine bread or by a baker of pottery or bricks.

Americanized form (translation into English) of surnames meaning ‘baker’ for example Dutch Bakker German Becker and Beck French Boulanger and Bélanger (see Belanger) Czech Pekař Slovak Pekár and Croatian Pekar.