Wager
An English surname most likely meaning someone connected with wages, hiring, or paid service.
The #9,488 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 90,066 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname is usually explained from Middle English words for a wage-earner or hired worker, ultimately from the root of "wage" meaning pay or hire. In the historical sources, it is linked especially to a person who worked for wages, and one source also connects it with the idea of a mercenary soldier. The same spelling may also have been influenced by older forms related to weighing or weighing goods, though that explanation is less secure.
History
The name is recorded in medieval England, including a 14th-century Yorkshire form such as Wagur. Later parish and civic records show Wager in London and elsewhere, and the surname remained fairly uncommon. Some 19th-century writers also repeated a folk story that the name came from betting on a greyhound race, but that is best treated as a surname tale rather than the main etymology.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A common old spelling, Wagur, shows how flexible surname spelling could be before standardization.
From the historical record
“influence of the following voiced letter d] WAGER"! (Teut.) 14th cent. (Yorks) Wagur WAGURj = Weigher [cp. Swed. wdgre = Dut. weger= Ger. wager, weigher ; f. O.N. uega = Dut. wegen = Ger. wdgen = O.E. wegan, to carry, weigh] WAGG (Scand.) i a nickname [f. M.E. waggen, O.N. uaga (whence Swed. wagga) = O.E.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)