Dishman
An occupational surname likely meaning “dish maker” or “dish seller,” from a medieval trade name.
The #6,634 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 60,467 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Dishman is most plausibly an English occupational surname built from Middle English dish plus man, literally “the dish man.” In surname use, such forms often pointed to a seller, maker, or dealer in the item named, rather than simply “a man with a dish.” A few older writers also treated it as a straightforward trade-name surname on the same model as other craft surnames ending in -man.
History
The surname is recorded in modern and historical surname lists, but it appears to have remained relatively uncommon. The 19th- and early-20th-century sources supplied here gloss it in occupational terms, and later writers group it with other -man trade surnames. In the United States it is present but not especially frequent, which fits a surname that likely stayed local and never became widely distributed.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The form fits a broad English naming pattern in which everyday trades and goods often produced surnames ending in -man, like Shoeman, Potman, or Kettleman.
From the historical record
“is the German for " hangman "). Yale has its Hengst.* John Carrier is postmaster at Middle Haddam, Conn. John Dishman is Attorney of the Twelfth Circuit Court in Kentucky (1857). A Mr. Skcllion lives in New York ; and Mr. Scullion, in Philadelphia. Mr. Lackie lives in Quebec ; Mr. Disher, at Ridgway, C.W. ; and…”
— Suffolk Surnames (3rd ed.)