Kerr
A chiefly Scottish and northern English surname most often explained as a place-name meaning a low, wet meadow or marshy clearing.
The #771 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 6,905 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The name is usually linked to northern dialect words like Middle English and Scots carr/kerr, referring to a marshy or low-lying piece of ground, especially a meadow in wet land. In that sense, Kerr began as a topographic surname for someone who lived near such a place. Some early dictionaries treat Kerr simply as a spelling or pronunciation variant of Carr.
History
The surname is well attested in medieval records in northern England and southern Scotland, where forms like del Kerr, atte Kerr, and Karr appear in tax and local records. It became especially common in Scotland, where Kerr is now a well-known Borders surname. English and Scottish spelling has long overlapped, so Kerr and Carr often shade into one another in older sources.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
In some medieval records, the same basic surname appears with several spellings for the same family, showing how fluid surname spelling was before standardization.
From the historical record
“Nantes. KERR. KER. See Carr. KERRELL. See Kyrle and Caryll. ICERRICH. This name occurs in the records of Dunwich, CO. Suffolk, in 1299. B.L.G. KERRY. KERREY. A parish in co. Iilontgomery. KERSEY. A parish in Suffolk.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom