Walker Surname Meaning and Origin

Walker Surname Meaning and Origin Walker is an occupational surname for a fuller, or one who originally walked on raw, damp cloth in order to shrink and thicken it. Derived from the Middle English walkcere, meaning a fuller of cloth, and the Old English wealcan, to walk or tread. Walker is the 28th most popular surname in the United States and the 15th most common in England. Surname Origin:   English, Scottish Alternate Surname Spellings:   WALLKER, WALKAR, WALKERE   Where in the World is the WALKER  Surname Found? The Walker surname is mainly characteristic of the midlands and of the north of England, according to  surname distribution data from  Forebears, especially in Yorkshire, where it ranks 5th, as well as Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Durham and Lancashire. Based on their data, Walker ranks as the 18th most common surname in England, 14th in Australia, 12th in New Zealand, 21st in Scotland and 25th in the United States. WorldNames PublicProfiler  identifies  the Walker surname as most common in East Riding of Yorkshire, England, followed by the regions of middle and northern England and southern Scotland.   Famous People with the Surname WALKER: George F. Walker - Canadian playwrightCharles D. Walker - American astronautDorothy Walker Bush - mother of the 41st U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and grandmother of the 43rd U.S. President George W. BushHerschel Walker - American football playerMary Edwards Walker - American activistWilliam Walker - American adventurer, filibuster and soldier; President of Nicaragua (1856-1857).Alice Walker - African American novelist and author of The Color Purple.Craven Walker - Inventor of the lava lamp. Genealogy Resources for the Surname WALKER: 100 Most Common U.S. Surnames Their MeaningsSmith, Johnson, Williams, Jones, Brown... Are you one of the millions of Americans sporting one of these top 100 common last names from the 2000 census? Common English Surnames Their MeaningsExplore the meanings and origins of the 100 most common English surnames. Walker Family History ProjectThis site is dedicated to collecting and recording genealogical information about Walker ancestors worldwide, and includes a number of online databases. John Walker Family OrganizationFamily history of the descendants of Robert Walker and Sarah Leager who came from England to Boston via the Winthrop Fleet of 1630. Walker Surname DNA ProjectOver 500 Walkers from around the world have joined together to establish a database of Walker DNA haplotypes to determine which Walker lineages share a common ancestor. FamilySearch - WALKER GenealogyExplore over 10 million historical records and lineage-linked family trees posted for the Walker surname and its variations on the free FamilySearch website, hosted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. WALKER Surname Family Mailing ListsRootsWeb hosts several free mailing lists for researchers of the Walker surname. DistantCousin.com - WALKER Genealogy Family HistoryFree databases and genealogy links for the last name Walker. Walker Genealogy ForumSearch the archives for posts about Walker ancestors, or post your own Walker query. - References: Surname Meanings Origins Cottle, Basil.  Penguin Dictionary of Surnames. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967. Dorward, David.  Scottish Surnames. Collins Celtic (Pocket edition), 1998. Fucilla, Joseph.  Our Italian Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 2003. Hanks, Patrick and Flavia Hodges.  A Dictionary of Surnames. Oxford University Press, 1989. Hanks, Patrick.  Dictionary of American Family Names. Oxford University Press, 2003. Reaney, P.H.  A Dictionary of English Surnames. Oxford University Press, 1997. Smith, Elsdon C.  American Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1997.    Back to  Glossary of Surname Meanings Origins