Lear
Usually a locational surname, probably from a Norman place-name rather than the Shakespearean king’s name.
The #4,638 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 40,364 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The best-known historical explanation treats Lear as a locational surname, linked to Lire in Normandy. In that view, the name originally meant someone who came from that place. One 19th-century writer also suggested a possible older mythological connection with a Northern name for Neptune, but that idea is much more speculative.
History
Lower explicitly rejected the idea that the surname comes from the personal name made famous by Shakespeare, and instead pointed to a Norman place of origin. That makes Lear one of several English surnames that likely entered Britain through Norman settlement or influence. The separate literary name of King Lear probably helped make the surname feel more familiar, but it is not the source of the family name itself.
Origin
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Variant spellings
Fun fact
The surname was already being discussed by Victorian name scholars as a place-name surname, not a literary borrowing from Shakespeare.
From the historical record
“LEAPINGWELL. See WeU. LEAR. Not from the personal name rendered illustrious liy the great dramatist, but from Lire, in tlie arrondissement of Evreux in Normandy. Mr. Ferguson thinks it may have come originally from Hler (Hleer) one of the names of the Nep- tune of Northern mythology. LEARMOUTII. Evidently local…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom