Plowman
An occupational surname for a person who plowed or worked the land with a plough.
The #8,728 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 82,179 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Plowman comes from Middle English plowman, meaning “ploughman” or “field worker,” built from plough + man. The first element goes back to Old English plōh, “plough,” ultimately the tool used for tilling soil. In plain terms, the name originally described someone whose work was plowing fields.
History
This is a straightforward English occupational surname, formed in the same way as many other medieval job-names. The form is well attested in early English writing, including Chaucer and Piers Plowman, where it appears as an ordinary word rather than a family name. As with many occupational surnames, it later became hereditary and spread beyond the original trade.
Origin
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Fun fact
The medieval poem Piers Plowman helped keep this old occupation word visible in literary English, even though the surname and the common noun are not the same name historically.
From the historical record
“pley{e, play] PLOWMAN (Eng.) Ploughman [M.E. /ifoo;, O.E. pldh (O.N. pUg-r), plough -f- man(n] I may nat doon as evtery plowman may. — Chaucer, Cant. Tales, E 799. PLOWRIGHT (Eng.) Plough-Maker [M.E. plowwrighte; O.E. pldh + pyrhta] PLOWS, genit., and pi., of Plow, q.v. PLOYD (Celt.) for the Welsh Ap-Uoyd, Ap-”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)