Last name origins & meanings:
- English: from the Middle English personal name Dere, Old
English Dēora, in part a short form of various compound
names formed with dēore ‘dear’, in part a byname meaning
‘beloved’, or dēor ‘brave’, ‘bold’.
- English: nickname from Middle
English dere, Old English dēor ‘wild animal’, or from
the adjective of the same form, meaning ‘wild’, ‘fierce’. By the
Middle English period the adjective was falling out of use, and the
noun was beginning to be restricted to the sense of modern English
deer, so that this may be the sense behind the surname in some
cases.
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