Wages
A surname probably referring to someone connected with wages or paid labor, rather than a single fixed occupation.
The #7,915 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 73,863 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is most likely from Middle English wages, meaning pay or hired labor, ultimately from Old French wage(s) and Germanic roots behind the idea of payment or pledge. In surname use, it seems to have been applied to a person associated with wages in some way—perhaps a wage-earner, a wage payer, or someone known by that term. The evidence is not exact, and nineteenth-century surname writers treat it as a name of office or condition rather than a sharply defined trade.
History
The historical excerpts show Bardsley linking the name with fixed wages and comparing it with other labor-related surnames such as Tasker. The form appears in late medieval records in spellings like Wagnr, Wagur, and similar OCR-distorted variants, suggesting a medieval English origin. It is not a common surname today, but it has survived in small numbers in English-speaking countries, especially the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same medieval word family behind this surname also gave English the everyday word “wages.”
From the historical record
“one who paid or was paid by fixed wages (I); cf. Tasker. Wllldiniu Wagnr rt Cecilia, nxor, ««rt,i379! P. T. York., p. 116. Har^areta Wafiir, iZ79'- ibid.”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances