Beeman
Either a surname for a beekeeper or a local-name form from Beaumont in some cases.
The #5,295 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 46,936 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The name is usually explained in two ways. One is occupational: Middle English had words for a bee-keeper or keeper of bees, and early writers connected Beeman with the care of bees and honey production. Another possibility, noted by surname scholars, is that some bearers got the name as a reduced or altered form of Beaumont, a place-name surname. Because both explanations appear in the historical record, the surname is best treated as having more than one possible origin.
History
Nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century surname writers repeatedly linked Beeman to bees, and one even compared it with German Bienemann as support for a bee-keeper interpretation. Others, however, pointed out that in some families it may simply be a phonetic or shortened form of Beaumont. The surname is established in England and later appears in North America, where it remained fairly uncommon but persistent.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books even cited Latin forms meaning “keeper of bees” when explaining Beeman.
From the historical record
“BEEDHAM. See Beetham. BEEMAN. BEMAN. Li former times, when mead or methlegn was a favourite beverage, the number of bees kept in Eng- land must have been much larger than now. Bce-jtarlts, or enclosures, exist in several parts of the country, though now appropriated to other uses. The keeper of such a jjark was…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom