Layman
A surname that may come from “layman” in the sense of a non-clergyman, though in some cases it may also reflect a form of Lawrence or another older name.
The #3,556 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 30,758 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The most straightforward explanation is that Layman comes from Middle English lewed, lay, or layman, meaning a person of the laity, as opposed to the clergy; older writers sometimes linked similar surnames to this contrast between “learned” and “lewd” in the older sense of “unlettered.” However, some surname scholars have suggested that Layman can also be a reduced or altered form of Lawrence-related names or other older personal names, so the origin is not completely settled. The name may therefore be either descriptive or a later phonetic development from another given name.
History
The surname is found in English records by the early modern period, including a 1618 London reference cited by later surname collectors. Because the name can overlap in spelling with ordinary words and with other surname forms, its history is somewhat tangled, and different families may not share the same origin. In some lines it likely began as a nickname for a layperson; in others it may have been reshaped from an older name such as Lawrence.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A 1914 surname study explicitly noted that Layman may be easier to explain as a derivative of Lawrence than as a literal “layman” nickname in every case.
From the historical record
“*Here lyeth the body of Habbakuk Layman, surgeon, who departed this life the 5th day of April, An. Dom. 1699,' Kenninghall, co. Norf. : FP. i. 223. Lonoon, 2; Philadelphia, 7; New York, 4.”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames (alternate scan)