Message: "Where does it come from?"

Where does it come from?

by Wearne (guest)

2/13/2006, 6:57 AM

I frequently search through sites such as this in the hope of finding my surname. Alas! to no avail. I have been led to believe that it comes from a village called Weir in Somerset but why I am not sure. I have seen it spelt Wearn or Wearne and I know that there are many of us in both America and Australia. Can anyone enlighten me as to the origin of this name?

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- Jim Young (guest) +1

2/13/2006, 1:43 PM

The Somerset place-name is in fact Wearne, the same as your surname. This is the likeliest origin of your name. Otherwise it might be a variant of Warne, a Cornish place-name and surname. Warne is said to be Cornish, meaning either "swamp" or "alder trees". I imagine Wearne in Somerset has the meaning (whichever), dating from a period when the Celtic influence reached further east.

- Jim Young (guest)

2/14/2006, 3:10 AM

Since writing this I've looked at the present-day distibution of this surname in Britain. It belongs almost exclusively to Cornwall. See for yourself at www.spatial-literacy.org, where you can see distribution maps for 1881 and 1998, plus some statistics.

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