LesieurFrench From old French sieur "lord, overlord" (from Latin senior "elder") fused with le either an occupational name for someone in service of a great lord or an ironic nickname for someone who gives himself airs or graces.
LessardFrench Name for someone who lived in a clearing, derived from French l'essart meaning "the assart" (a term for cleared forest land used for agriculture). It is also a habitational name for someone from any of various locations named Lessard or Lessart, of the same origin and meaning.
LetendreFrench From 'tendre', meaning "tender" or "delicate".
LétourneauFrench Nickname for a chatty, gregarious person or an occupational name for a birdcatcher, derived from French l'étourneau meaning "the starling".
LeverFrench, English Nickname for a fleet-footed or timid person, from Old French levre ‘hare’ (Latin lepus, genitive leporis). It may also have been a metonymic occupational name for a hunter of hares... [more]
LinéFrench (Rare) From Old French liné meaning "made of linen". This name was an occupational name for someone who weaved linen or was a linen merchant.
ListratFrench From Occitan "listrat" meaning "chopped off, striped" or from "Listrac", a commune in the Gironde department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwest France.
LoiselFrench Derived from Old French oisel "bird" with fused definite article l' used as a nickname for a flighty individual or perhaps for a small birdlike person but possibly also as a metonymic occupational name for a bird-catcher.
LombardFrench, English, South African French and English cognate of Lombardi, or derived from the given name Lambert. A famous bearer of this name was the American actress Carole Lombard (1908-1942), born Jane Alice Peters.
LorraineFrench, English, Scottish habitational name from Lorraine a region in the northeastern part of France. Its name derives from the name of the medieval kingdom of Lothari Regnum which in turn was named for its sovereign Lothar (a personal name composed of the elements hlud "famous renowned" and hariheri "army").
LottFrench From the Department (Region/State)in France, "Lot" and "Lot-et-Garrone"; also a river in France (Lot). Brought to the British Isles, Holland (Netherlands) and later the United States, Canada and South Africa, by French Huguenots.
LupinFrench Lupin is a variant on the Latin word "lupus", meaning "wolf". Two important literary characters, Arsène Lupin, the famous French gentleman-burglar, and Professor Remus Lupin, from the world of Harry Potter, have this name... [more]
LuquetteFrench (Quebec) Canadian spelling of French Luquet, derived from a pet form of the given name Luc. It is also a variant of French Loquet, a metonymic occupational name for a locksmith.
LussierFrench Occupational name from old French ussier "usher, doorkeeper".
MaceEnglish, French English: from a medieval personal name, a survival of Old English Mæssa, which came to be taken as a pet form of Matthew.... [more]
MaconFrench, German French: See Maçon. An occupational name for a mason, French maçon. Habitational name from places so called in Saône-et-Loire, Allier, Aube, the Côte d’Or, Gers, and Deux-Sères... [more]
MaffretFrench beleived to originated in{ NICE, france} in the late 19th century, emmigration from france to london,{stepney}, where the surname was mistakenly added an extra letter "T" resulting in the surname MAFFRETT
MaineFrench French topographic name from Old French maine ‘dwelling’, ‘residence’, ‘abode’, or a habitational name from any of numerous places so named.
MaiselYiddish, German, French Predominantly seems to be a matronymic surname from the Yiddish feminine name Mayzl. Although it is believed that it derived from the Hebrew name Meïser, which means “representative of God”... [more]
MaisonFrench, Walloon Derived from Old French maison "residence", this name used to be given to someone who lived by an important house.
MajorsNorman Based on the Norman given name Mauger. The name indicates one who is the son of Maugier, an Old French personal name, which is derived from the Old Germanic name Malger, which means council spear.
MalecuitFrench Means "doughy," "soggy," or "undercooked" in French.
MalfaitFrench Derived from French mal fait, which literally means "poorly done, badly done". In the context of the surname, it refers to the first bearer being "malformed" or "deformed" (as it was in the eyes of people from older times), which means that he either was physically disabled or able-bodied but with a physical trait that deviated from the norm.
MalinEnglish, French, Dutch From the given name Malin (English), and from the given name Madalin composed of the Germanic element madal meaning "council" (French, Dutch).
MalletAnglo-Norman, Medieval English, French, Catalan Originated in Norman France and spread to England following the Norman conquest of 1066. The surname comes from the given name Malle, an Old English diminutive of Mary or from the given name Malo, a popular form of the name of Saint Maclovius, a 6th-century Welsh monk who the church of Saint Maclou in Rouen is named for.... [more]
MaloretFrench This surname comes from the French and means 'unfortunate' or 'luckless'.
MalpassEnglish, Scottish, French Habitational name from any of various places named Malpas, because of the difficulty of the terrain, from Old French mal pas "bad passage" (Latin malus passus). It is a common French minor place name, and places in Cheshire, Cornwall, Gwent, and elsewhere in England were given this name by Norman settlers... [more]
MansellAnglo-Norman, French A status name for a particular type of feudal tenant, Anglo-Norman French mansel, one who occupied a manse (Late Latin mansa ‘dwelling’), a measure of land sufficient to support one family... [more]
MansellEnglish (Canadian), Norman Of Norman origin, a habitational or regional name from Old French mansel ‘inhabitant of Le Mans or the surrounding area of Maine’. The place was originally named in Latin (ad) Ceromannos, from the name of the Gaulish tribe living there, the Ceromanni... [more]
ManvilleFrench A locational surname deriving from any of the various places in France called "Manneville or Magneville", named, from the Old Germanic personal name "Manno" or the Old French adjective "magne", great, with the word "ville", meaning a town or settlement.
MaqueronFrench Of debated origin and meaning. Theories include a derivation from Picard maqueron "chin" (in which case this would have been a pejorative nickname for someone with a protruding chin) and a diminutive of Macquart.
MarableFrench, English From the feminine personal name Mirabel, equated in medieval records with Latin mirabilis "marvelous", "wonderful" (in the sense "extraordinary").
MarchalFrench, Walloon Either a status name or occupational name from Old French mareschal "marshal" (from Late Latin mariscalcus). The term is of ancient Germanic origin (from marah "horse mare" and scalc "servant") and was originally applied to a man who looked after horses... [more]
MarchantFrench, English, Spanish Variant of Marchand, from French marchand meaning "merchant, mercantile". Though it is of French origin, it was transferred into the Spanish-speaking world, especially Chile, by French invasion of the Iberian Peninsula.
MarquisFrench, English for someone who behaved like a marquis or an occupational name for a servant in the household of a marquis, from Old Northern French marquis... [more]
MaseyEnglish, Scottish, French, Norman English and Scottish (of Norman origin) and French: habitational name from any of various places in northern France which get their names from the Gallo-Roman personal name Maccius + the locative suffix -acum.... [more]
MastinFrench, Flemish, Walloon occupational name for a household servant or guard from Old French mastin "watchdog, manservant" (from Latin mansuetudinus "domestic"). The Old French word had the further sense of a bad-tempered dog and was used as an adjective in the sense of "bad cruel".
MathenyFrench (Anglicized) Of French origin. According to Matheny family tradition, this surname comes from the name of a village in France named Mathenay. This may also have been a French Huguenot surname.
MaturinFrench From the French male personal name Maturin, from Latin Mātūrīnus, a derivative of Mātūrus, literally "timely". It was borne by the Irish "Gothic" novelist Charles Maturin (1782-1824).
MeauxFrench Habitational name from a place in Seine-et-Marne, so named from the Gaulish tribal name Meldi, or from Meaux-la-Montagne in Rhône.
MéeFrench French habitational name from places called (Le) Mée in Mayenne, Eure-et-Loir, and Seine-et-Marne, derived from Old French me(i)s ‘farmstead’ (Latin mansus).
MénardFrench From the Old German given name Meginhard, making it a cognate of Maynard. A notable bearer was André Ménard, Governor General in the French colonial empire.
MerletteFrench Feminine diminutive of French merle "blackbird", this name was given as a nickname to a cheerful person or to someone who liked to sing.
MerlinEnglish, French, German From the given name Merlin as well as referred to the blackbird, that is named merle in French and merlo in Italian and Spanish... [more]
MerrimenNorman An ancient Norman name, that would have been used in Britain soon after the Conquest of the island in 1066. This name was given to a person who was a person who was a mischievous child, or who liked to play tricks and make jokes.
MessiaenDutch, French Derived from Messiaen, the (archaic) Dutch form of the latinate first name Messianus, which itself is ultimately derived from the Roman praenomen Messus. The meaning of Messus is not wholly certain; it may be derived from the Latin verb meto "to reap, to harvest, to cut, to sever", or from the latinized form of Greek mesos or messos "(the) middle, (the) middle one"... [more]
MessierFrench Occupational name for someone who kept watch over harvested crops, Old French messier 'harvest master' (Late Latin messicarius, agent derivative of messis 'harvest').
MetrejonLouisiana Creole (?), French (?) Maiden surname of Constance Leto (nee Metrejon). She was born in Louisiana and has Cajun(French) ancestry. The Metrejon line is traced back to Joseph Marie Maitrejean, who was born c. 1778, in Belle-Île-en-Mer, France, an island off the coast of Brittany.
MickleyFrench It originated when an immigrant family named Michelet came to New York from Northern France. Because they had a foreign surname, they made up the names Mickley and Michelin. The originator was Jean Jacques Michelet (John Jacob Mickley), a private in the Revolutionary War... [more]
MilletFrench, Catalan metonymic occupational name for a grower or seller of millet or panic grass or a topographic name for someone who lived by a field of millet from French and Catalan millet (from Latin milietum a derivative of milium in Old French mil "millet").
MolletFrench Topographic name for someone who lived in a muddy or boggy place from a diminutive of mol "marsh, bog".
MolyneuxFrench Possibly a habitational name from Moulineux, meaning "mill of the waters", or derives from the Old French name De Molines or De Moulins, meaning "mill". The surname has been linked to a large French family that settled in Lancashire from France.