Family name origins & meanings
- German, Alsatian, and Jewish (Ashkenazic) : nickname from Middle High German lūre, German Lauer ‘crafty or cunning person’, ‘cheat’ (apparently originally ‘one with narrowed eyes’).
- German : occupational name for a tanner, Middle High German lōwer, from lō ‘tannin’, which is extracted from the bark of trees.
- South German : habitational name from Lauer in Franconia, named from the stream on which it stands.