Fears
An English surname that is probably a variant of Ferris, though some sources also connect it with Gaelic fear, meaning “man” or “hero.”
The #7,027 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 64,835 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Fears is not securely settled. One 19th-century source treats it as probably the same name as Ferris, which would point to a patronymic or nickname-form history behind the spelling. Another notes that in Gaelic, fear means “man” or “hero,” so the name may also have been understood as a Gaelic word or reinterpreted through Irish/Scottish usage.
History
The name appears in English records and later surname lists, but the evidence in the older dictionaries is thin and somewhat cautious. In the United States it survives in small numbers and may reflect one or more unrelated family lines with similar spellings. Because the surname overlaps with the common English word fears, it also has an easily misunderstood appearance that can obscure its true origin.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname writers explicitly compared Fears with Ferris, showing how often 19th-century compilers had to guess at spellings that were already shifting.
From the historical record
“in the arms of one family of this name. FEARS. Probably the same as Ferris. E. Surn. ii. 95. Fear is, however, Gaelic for a man or hero. FEAST. See Feist. FEATHER. Probably a sobriquet ap- plied to a person who wore a remarkable one in his cap. FEE. A feudal possession. Sometimes certain lands obtained this name, e. g.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom