Boyer

Repartition and etymology

Boyer [bwaje] is a personal name from France, found traditionally along the Mediterranean sea (Provence, Languedoc), the Rhône valley, Auvergne, Limousin, Périgord and more generally in the Southwest of France. Nevertheless, it has been existing further north since a long time. There are two variant spellings centered precisely : Boyé (southwest) and Bouyer (Loire-Atlantique, Charente-Maritime).

It ranks 50th out of the most common surnames in France and 265 in Québec.

Like many other surnames, it used to be a nickname describing somebody's job in that case : "bullock driver", "cowherd", that is to say Bouvier in common French. It derives mainly from the Occitan buòu « ox », with the suffix -iar / -ier, frenchified phonetically or, further north, sometimes from a variant form in dialectal French bô, bou "ox" corresponding to common French bœuf with the suffix -ier. In French, the modern spelling -oyer [waje] avoids the confusion between -oi-er [wa'e] and -oier [waje].

In rarer cases, it can be a corruption or deliberate alteration of several other names :

1. In England, may come from bowyer, meaning "bow maker" or "bow seller."
2. In Turkish, the name may come from "boy-er", "boy" meaning "size" or "stature" and "er" meaning "man" or "soldier."
3. It can also be a corruption or deliberate alteration of several German names like Bayer or Bauer.

People with the surname