Summer Family History

English: from the Middle English (Old English) personal name Sumor Sumer originally a nickname from Middle English sum(m)er ‘summer’ and perhaps still a nickname (compare 4 below) in the period of surname formation. The personal name is not independently recorded but in England appears in the placenames Somersall (Derbyshire) and Somersham (Suffolk and Cambridgeshire).

English: occupational name from Middle English somer somour perhaps a shortened form of sommerer somerour ‘packhorse man carrier’ itself a derivative of Middle English somer (Old French sommier) ‘beast of burden packhorse’. Alternatively the name may imply ‘porter carrier’.

It is possible that somer and somour are derivatives of Middle English som(m)e sum(m)e ‘weight’ derived from Old French somme some ‘weight burden’. Compare Middle English seme some (Old English sēam sēom) ‘load burden weight’. This surname is widely recorded across medieval England but the absence of any Middle English examples with the definite article and of any relevant contextual evidence makes an occupational sense difficult to confirm.

However the Middle English surname Somister which appears to be occupational (see Sumpter) may imply the existence of a twin form Somer similar to pairs like Baker and Baxter Webber and Webster.

English: possibly also from a Middle English assimilated form of Sumner. German: variant of Sommer a nickname from Middle High German sumer ‘summer’. German: from Middle High German sum(b)er sum(m)er ‘woven basket’ and by extension a ‘drum’ hence a metonymic occupational name for a basketweaver or a drummer.