Bucher
A German surname that can mean either “bookman” or, in some cases, someone from a place called Buch or Buchen.
The #4,772 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 41,627 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Bucher is a German surname with more than one likely source. In many cases it comes from German Buch, meaning “book,” and may have been used for a scribe, book copyist, bookseller, or bookbinder. In other cases it is a habitational name from places called Buch or Buchen, from the same word for “beech tree” or “beech wood,” so the surname could mean “person from the beech-wood place.”
History
The name is well attested in German-speaking areas and also appears in Swiss contexts. English and American records often reflect immigrant spellings and pronunciation shifts, with the surname sometimes rendered as Booker in older anglicized forms. Because several German and Swiss place-names contain Buch, individual family lines may have different origins even when the spelling is the same.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some early onomastic writers linked Bucher directly to a “book copier,” while others treated it as a place-name surname; both explanations can be valid depending on the family line.
From the historical record
“Baadecbon le Bocher, London, ibid. Simon le Bucher, co. Norf., ibid. Michael le Bucher. T. 1794. Married— Jonathan Botcher and Mary Ellen Dosset : St Geo. Han. Sq.”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames (alternate scan)