Scribner
An occupational surname for a writer, scribe, or professional copyist.
The #5,311 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 47,079 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Scribner is a reduced form of Scrivener, the medieval term for a professional writer, copyist, or clerk. The ultimate root is Latin scribere, “to write,” passed into English through Old French and Middle English forms such as scriveiner and scrivener. The surname therefore began as an occupational name for someone who wrote documents for others.
History
The name appears as a shortened spelling of Scrivener in later English surname usage. Historical surname dictionaries group Scribner with other writing-related occupational names such as Scribe, Scrivener, and Scrivens. In the United States, Scribner is also familiar through the publishing name Charles Scribner, which helped keep the surname recognizable.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
19th-century surname scholars explicitly treated Scribner as a variant of Scrivener rather than a separate root name.
From the historical record
“SCRIBEN ] SCRIBENER \ ■■ SCRIBNER J Scrlven, Scrivener, q.v SCRIBENS = Scrivens, q.v. SCRIMGEOUR \ SCRIMIGER”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)