Post
A surname with several possible roots, most often linked to a messenger or courier, and sometimes to a place-name or signboard.
The #1,530 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 13,162 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname is usually explained from Middle English post, a word for a messenger, courier, or express rider, ultimately from Latin postis/posta in later administrative use. In some cases it may instead be topographic or locational, referring to someone living by a post, marker, boundary point, or inn sign. Because the word had several ordinary senses in medieval and early modern English, the surname can arise independently in more than one way.
History
Lower explicitly treats POST as connected with the sense of a special messenger or courier. Later surname writers also note that names of this sort can be either occupational or taken from local features and signs, so the surname may not have a single origin in every family line. It is a relatively uncommon surname in the United States today, though it is much older in Britain and can appear in several unrelated branches.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same short word produced both an everyday noun and, much later, the modern idea of the mail service.
From the historical record
“nity. POST. A special messenger; a courier. Halliwell quotes the following anecdote: — " One night a dninken fellow joslecl against a post, but the fellow thought somebody iiart josled him, and fell a heating the post till his fingers wore broken. Says one to him, Fie ! what do yow fight with a post? Is it a post?…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom