Updated June 9, 2019

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Family name origins & meanings

  • English : occupational name for a dyer of cloth, Middle English dyer (from Old English dēag ‘dye’; the verb is a back-formation from the agent noun). This surname also occurs in Scotland, but Lister is a more common equivalent there.
  • Irish (Counties Sligo and Roscommon) : usually a short form of MacDyer, an Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Duibhir ‘son of Duibhir’, a short form of a personal name composed of the elements dubh ‘dark’, ‘black’ + odhar ‘sallow’, ‘tawny’.