Lester
A surname most commonly taken from Leicester, the English city, so it originally meant “someone from Leicester.”
The #768 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 6,894 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Lester is generally understood as a shortened form of Leicester. The place-name Leicester goes back to Roman and early English forms, ultimately referring to the settlement on the River Soar; the ending was later simplified in everyday pronunciation and spelling. In surname use, it began as a locational name for someone who came from Leicester or was identified with that place.
History
Historical surname dictionaries regularly treat Lester as a reduced spelling of Leicester. The name appears in England by the medieval period and later spread widely in Britain and, through migration, to North America and elsewhere. The related form Lister is also often discussed alongside it in older sources.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some older surname books note Lester as an example of how place-names often became simpler in speech before settling into a shorter family-name spelling.
From the historical record
“LESSINGHAM. A parish in Norfolk. LESTER. A corruption of Leicester. LESTRANGE. See Strange. LETBE. See Letheby. LETHBRIDGE. Clearly a local name, though the locality is unknown. The late radical Henry Hunt, a political opponent of Sir Thos. Lethbridge, used to assert that the worthy Baronet's grandfather was a…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom