Easterling
An English surname meaning “person from the east,” especially a Hanseatic or German trader in older usage.
The #4,201 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 36,612 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Easterling comes from Middle English words for someone from the east, ultimately from Old English east. In medieval English, it was especially used for merchants from the Hanseatic towns and other Germans who came from the east side of the North Sea. The surname could therefore begin as an ethnic or regional label rather than a hereditary family name.
History
Older surname books often connect Easterling with Hanseatic merchants in England, and some also note an earlier local use for a place or district called Estherlinge in Norfolk. Related forms such as Sterling and Stradling were sometimes treated as altered versions of the same name. The word also helped generate the phrase “sterling money,” originally linked in popular etymology to the quality of eastern coinage used by these traders.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The surname is closely tied to the history of “sterling” as a word for money of high quality.
From the historical record
“not from the French. EASTERLING, corrupted into Stradling, a native of one of the Hanseatic towns. The pure coinage introduced by these in the reign of Richard I. gave rise to the expression Easter- ling or Sterling money. Hence our names Easterman, Oyster- man, and Easte. ESPAGNOL has become Aspinall. ENGLISH, in…”
— Family Names and their Story