Family name origins & meanings
- Occupational name for a smith or ironworker, from Latin faber ‘craftsman’. This was in use as a surname in England, Scotland, and elsewhere in the Middle Ages and is also found as a personal name. At the time of the Reformation, it was much used as a humanistic name, a translation into Latin of vernacular surnames such as German Schmidt and Dutch Smit.
- Secondary surname in French Canada for Lefebvre. The name Fabert appears in Kaskaskia, IL, in 1725.