Widener
A surname most likely from a German name such as Weidner/Waidner, probably tied to meadow or pasture terminology.
The #6,250 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 56,505 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The strongest clue is the German surname Weidner or Waidner, which older writers connected with words for meadow, pasture, or grazing land. In English spelling, Widener can also look like a naturalized or Anglicized form of that same German name. Some 19th-century explanations treated it as if it meant something like a “grass refuge,” but those folk-etymological readings are not as secure as the German surname connection.
History
In North America, Widener appears among German-American surname spellings that were reshaped to fit English spelling habits. Older surname writers sometimes grouped it with Wider and Widman-type forms, but later comparative work points more clearly to Weidner/Waidner as the likely source. The name is now best known in the United States, where it remains relatively uncommon.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A 1902 surname study explicitly notes Widener as a spelling variant of Weidner.
From the historical record
“Mr. Wanmaker, Mr. Wanner, Mr. Weekman, and Mr. WiEKMAN. Mr. Weightman lives at Philadel- phia ; also families of Wider and Widener. Wide- man is found at Altona, C.W., and at ]Montreal; Ampleman, at Quebec ; Largy, at Hamilton, C.W. 152 NAMES FROM BODILY PECULIARITIES.”
— Suffolk Surnames (3rd ed.)