Zeigler
A German surname most often linked to a maker or burner of tiles and bricks, with later spelling variation across German-speaking and English-speaking countries.
The #2,742 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 23,506 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Zeigler is generally treated as a German occupational surname related to the older word for a tilemaker or brickmaker, from German dialect forms tied to firing or making tiles. It is often grouped with surnames like Ziegler, which reflects the same trade in standard German spelling. The name originally identified someone by occupation rather than by family line.
History
The surname appears in German-speaking areas and later spread through migration to North America and elsewhere. In English records, spellings were often normalized or altered, which helps explain forms like Zeigler alongside the more common Ziegler. The 19th-century excerpt provided here lists the name only incidentally and does not add etymological detail.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Because spelling was not fixed for many immigrant families, Zeigler and Ziegler can sometimes be branch-by-branch spelling variants of the same underlying surname.
From the historical record
“Yerxa, Youlen. Zahanas, Zahm, Zane, Zannity, Zeigler, Zeiner, Zemm, Zepfler, Zerdahelyi, Zerrahn, Zetto, Zeu- ner, Zimmett, Zippert, Zoebisch, Zoeller and ZoHLER, Zremm, Zuill, and Zwinge. * John Wogan was Lord-Justice of Ireland in 1295.”
— Suffolk Surnames (3rd ed.)