Bowler
An English surname that could mean either a maker of bowls or, in some cases, someone nicknamed for cooking or boiling.
The #7,123 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 65,719 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname is usually treated as occupational. In medieval English, a bowler was a maker of bowls or dishes, from Middle English words for a bowl or vessel. Some older sources also suggest a separate sense in Scots or northern English speech connected with boiling or cooking, so in a few families it may have begun as a nickname for a cook.
History
The name appears in English records in several forms and was noted by 19th-century surname writers as especially associated with occupational origins. Lower also mentions a family “of Bowler, co. Wilts,” showing that it was established as a surname in England by the early modern period. Variant spellings such as Boaler reflect regional pronunciation and spelling differences.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Bardsley explicitly glossed Bowler as “the bowler,” meaning a maker of wooden bowls and dishes.
From the historical record
“BOWLAND. A township in Lancashire. BOWLER. In Fifeshire, ' to bowl' is to boil. One who cooks. Or perhaps a maker of bowls. BOWLES. Domesd. presents us with two tenants in chief called Bollo and Bollo, the former in Hants, and the latter in Dorset. Bouelles is the name of a place near Neufchatel in Normand\^…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom