Sherer
A surname usually understood as a variant spelling of Shearer, meaning “one who shears” or “sheep-shearer.”
The #7,157 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 66,056 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Sherer is generally treated as a spelling variant of Shearer. The underlying sense comes from Old English roots for “shear” plus an agent suffix, giving the meaning “one who shears” or “a shearer,” especially of wool or sheep. Some older surname books also place it alongside forms like Sherard or Sherwood in confusion, so the spelling history is not always tidy.
History
19th-century surname dictionaries usually direct Sherer back to Shearer rather than treating it as a separate independent name. The form is found in both Britain and the United States, where spelling variation was common and records often shift between Sherer, Shearer, Sherar, and Sherrer. In modern usage it survives as a relatively uncommon surname.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname indexes often filed Sherer under Shearer because the two were treated as the same name in spelling variants.
From the historical record
“and York. SHERER. See Shearer, and Shearmau. SHERGOLD. See Sheargold. SHERIFF. SHERRIFF. From the oftice, A-Sax. scH'-^^rc/Vf, i.e., "shire-reeve." The Domesday equivalent is vicccomes, which implies the deputy or substitute of a count, whose jurisdiction extended over a shire or county.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom