Converse
A surname probably nicknamed for a monastery lay-brother or for someone marked as a ‘convert’ or religious convert.
The #7,554 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 70,169 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is usually linked to Middle English and Old French religious vocabulary. One line of explanation connects it with a lay-brother in a monastery, a menial helper or drudge; another relates it to the idea of a convert, from Latin conversus, “turned around” or “converted.” The name may therefore have begun as an occupational or descriptive label in a religious setting rather than as a personal name in the modern sense.
History
The name appears in English surname collections, especially in records from the British Isles and later North America. 19th- and early-20th-century writers treated it as a word-name with a religious sense, though the precise historical path is not fully certain. In the United States it is uncommon but established, and it has also survived in place and family-name usage.
Origin
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Variant spellings
Fun fact
Earlier surname writers noted that Converse could be explained either from a monastery role or from the idea of a church convert, showing how many surnames began as labels for a person’s social or religious status.
From the historical record
“Terms of Endearment and Friendship. We still in common converse say, ' Well, old chap,' or ' My good fellow.' Hence Goodfellow, Goodbody, Goodman, Goodchild, Leifchild, Bellamy, Bonamy, Well- beloved, Truelove, Sweetcock, Lemon or Leman, Douceamour, Parramore, Bunting. Some of these names were at first baptismal.”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances