Farmer surname meaning

Farmer is an English occupational surname from Middle English farmer, a person who worked or managed a farm. In medieval usage the word could refer not only to a cultivator but also to a tenant or steward who farmed an estate, sometimes under a lease. Farmar, Fermor, and Fermour are historical or regional forms, while spelling similarity does not identify one household. The surname could arise independently in many rural communities. Occupation is the high-confidence catalog type because the occupational word and its use as a byname are clear, even though an individual ancestor’s precise status may have differed.