Fisher Family History

English: occupational name for a fisherman from Middle English fis(sc)her(e) ‘fisherman’ (Old English fiscere). In North America, this surname has absorbed cognates from many other languages including German Fischer and its Slavic(ized) variant Fišer (see Fiser), Dutch Visser, Hungarian Halász (see Halasz), Italian Pescatore, Slovenian Ribič (see Ribic), and Croatian Ribić or Ribar.

English: in a few cases possibly a topographic name for someone who lived near a fish weir on a river from Middle English fis(sc)hwere, fisshyar ‘fish weir’ (Old English fiscwer, fiscgear), or a habitational name from a place so named such as Fisher in North Mundham, Sussex.

Irish: translation into English of Gaelic Ó Bradáin ‘descendant of Bradán’, a personal name meaning ‘salmon’. See Braden.

Jewish (Ashkenazic): occupational name for a fisherman Yiddish fisher (from German Fischer). Americanized form (mistranslation into English) of French Poissant, meaning ‘powerful, strong, vigorous’ but understood as poisson ‘fish’ and assimilated to the more frequent English name.

Americanized form (translation into English) of French Poisson ‘fish’ and assimilated to the more frequent English name. Native American (Cheyenne): from a mistranslation into English of the Cheyenne personal name Noma'heškeso ‘Little Fish’ from a diminutive of noma'he ‘fish’.