Family name origins & meanings
- English : occupational name for a winder of wool, from an agent derivative of Middle English winde(n) ‘to wind’ (Old English windan ‘to go’, ‘to proceed’). The verb was also used in the Middle Ages of various weaving and plaiting processes, so that in some cases the name may have referred to a basket or hurdle maker.
- English : habitational name from any of the various minor places in northern England so called, from Old English vindr ‘wind’ + erg ‘hut’, ‘shelter’, i.e. a shelter against the wind.
- English : John Winder is recorded in Somerset Co., MD, in 1665. William Henry Winder, born in the county in 1775, was blamed for the military defeat that led to the British burning of Washington, DC, in 1814; his son John Henry Winder (b. 1800) was a confederate general who was commander of southern military prisons.