Family name origins & meanings
- English : occupational name for a parish priest, Middle English vica(i)re, vikere (Old French vicaire, from Latin vicarius ‘substitute’, ‘deputy’). The word was originally used to denote someone who carried out pastoral duties on behalf of the absentee holder of a benefice. It became a regular word for a parish priest because in practice most benefice holders were absentees.
- Irish and Scottish : reduced form of McVicker, an Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac áBhiocair (Scottish) or Mac an Bhiocaire (Irish) ‘son of the vicar’.