First name origin & meaning: English: Occupational surname First name variations: Backstere, Baecere, Bax, Baxter, Baxley, Bakir, Bakker, Bakory, Bakr Last name origins & meanings:
- 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 of cognates or equivalents in many other
languages, for example German Bäcker, Becker; Dutch
Bakker, Bakmann; French Boulanger. For other
forms see Hanks and Hodges (1988).
- Baker was well established as an early immigrant family name in
Puritan New England. Among others, two men called Remember Baker
(father and son) lived at Woodbury, CT, in the early 17th century, and
an Alexander Baker arrived in Boston, MA, in 1635.
This name appears in the following lists:
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