Binder
Usually an occupational surname for a bookbinder or other maker of bindings, though a few cases may reflect other binding-related crafts.
The #3,660 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 31,764 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Binder is most commonly explained as an occupational surname from Middle English and later English, referring to a person who bound books. Early surname evidence also links it with the Latin occupational form ligator, meaning "binder," especially in records such as the Hundred Rolls. In some historical discussions, the name was also extended to other kinds of binding work, such as making tubs or similar containers, but the bookbinding sense is the clearest and best-attested.
History
The surname appears in medieval English records and was treated by 19th-century surname writers as a straightforward craft name. Bardsley and Lower both connect it with bookbinding and with the medieval form Ligator, including the phrase "book-binder" in Oxford records. It survives today in England, North America, and other English-speaking regions, though it is not especially common.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A medieval Oxford bookbinder could appear in records with a Latinized occupational tag, such as Ligator librorum, literally "binder of books."
From the historical record
“London, 1,0; Nei.Yorlt,o, 1. Binder, — Occup. 'the book- binder.' This ii practically settled by the Hundred Rolls, where, in the town of Oxford, Stephen Li- gator, librorum, is mentioned again as Stephen Ligator. Also in the”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances