Easter is rapidly approaching, and our thoughts have turned to festive surnames. In fact, the surname Easter is not that rare, with over 3000 Easter births registered in General Registration within the period 1837-1915.
Like the surnames Christmas and Yule, if your name is Easter then it could be that an earlier ancestor was born on Easter day, or had some other connection to Easter. However, unlike these other two surnames, Easter does have other possible etymological origins.
It could derive from someone living east of somewhere, or it could be a locational surname from villages in Essex, whose name in turn probably derives from the Old English 'eowestre' meaning sheepfold.
So if your surname is Easter, your ancestors may have been born on Easter day, they may have lived in the east, or near a sheepfold!
