Weller
A common English surname meaning someone who lived by a well or spring.
The #2,615 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 22,415 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Weller is most likely an English topographic surname built from Middle English welle, meaning a well or spring, plus the agent suffix -er, giving the sense of “one who lives by the well.” Some older writers also treated it as a variant or short form related to Well or Wells. The name is not an occupational label in the modern sense, but a place-based one, so the traditional classification is topographic.
History
The name appears in English records in medieval and later periods, and it has remained established in Britain and, through migration, in the United States and other English-speaking countries. Nineteenth-century surname writers such as Bardsley and Harrison explicitly explain it as a residence-by-the-well name. It is also familiar in popular culture through characters such as Tony Weller in Dickens.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books often connected Weller with the same root as Wells, emphasizing how many English surnames began as simple descriptions of where someone lived.
From the historical record
“wellen, wells: v. Wells] WELLER (Eng.) i Dweller by a Well or Spring [M.E. welle, O.E. w{i)ella + the agent, suff. -ere] 2 for Wilier, q.v. WELLESLEY (Eng.) Bel. to Wellesley = the Well's Lea [O.E. wiell, genit. wielles,”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)