Collier
An occupational surname for a charcoal burner or coal seller.
The #599 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 5,476 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Collier comes from the occupational word for a maker or seller of charcoal, and in older usage it could also refer more broadly to a coal worker. The form is connected with Anglo-French and Middle English spellings such as le coliere, ultimately from Latin roots behind the medieval term for charcoal or coal work. In historical records, the name often appears as a straightforward job-name surname rather than a place-name or patronymic.
History
The surname is well established in medieval English records and survives in several spellings, including Colyer and Collyer. Because charcoal burning was once a widespread and important trade, the name became relatively common. It remained especially frequent in English-speaking countries and later spread widely through migration, including to the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
In some older sources, Collier was treated as a common enough trade-name that it was glossed simply as “a maker of charcoal.”
From the historical record
“tingham. COLLIER. A maker of charcoal, for- merly a much more important and common occupation than now. In medieval docu- ments it is M-ritten Le Coliere, Carbonarius, &c. COLLIN. COLLINS. COLLIS. Co- lin is one of the diminutives of Nicholas, and Collins may be its genitive, and CoUis a corruption thereof. There…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom