Spires
A surname most likely taken from the German city of Speyer, known as Spires in English.
The #4,672 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 40,667 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is generally understood as a locational name from Speyer, the German city long known in English as Spires. The English form reflects the medieval habit of using well-known foreign place-names as surnames for people who came from, or were associated with, that place. Earlier scholarship also connects the city name with an older river or landscape name, though the surname itself is best explained simply as "from Speyer/Spires."
History
19th-century surname writers consistently treat Spires as a place-name surname, and the form appears alongside related spellings such as Spire. In English-speaking records it is relatively uncommon, but it fits a broader pattern of surnames formed from continental European towns, especially among families of German or Anglo-German connection. The surname may also have been reinforced by immigration and by English speakers’ familiarity with the city-name Spires for Speyer.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Speyer is one of the oldest cities in Germany, and its English name, Spires, turns up in older genealogical and historical writing more often than in modern everyday use.
From the historical record
“O.E. spinnan, to spin] SPIRE, V. Spyep. SPIRES, V. Spyers. SPI RETT, a weak form (through the intermed. Spyrad: Yorks, a.d. 1379) of Spirhard, q.v. SPIRHARD (Scand.) Spear-Brave [O.N. *Spiorhar^-r—spiSr (=O.E. spere), spear -f- har^r (=O.E. h(e)ard), hard, brave] Philip Spirhard. — Hund. Rolls (Norf.), A.D. 1274.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)