Family name origins & meanings
- English : variant of Ayer.
- English : topographic name for someone who lived by an enclosure, Middle English hay (see Hay 1) + the suffix -er(e) denoting an inhabitant.
- French : occupational name for a warder of woodland, from an agent derivative of Old French haye ‘hedge’, ‘enclosed forest’.
- South German : from an agent derivative of Middle High German heien ‘to guard or protect’, hence an occupational name for a warden of woodland or crops.
- Indian (Panjab) : Sikh name based on the name of a Jat clan, also called Her.