Guyver or Guiver is a surname that has mostly dropped out of use.According to Government Stats. on voters, it is the 4066th. most common name.
"Guyver" originally spelled "Gyver" is an old English family name which has been traced back to the death of Richard Gyver in 1544. The family home still exists in Ugley, Essex. An alternative spelling came about when the old English vowel 'Y' was changed to an 'I', so that Tyme became Time, Wyllyam became William and so on. The Guiver branch of the family is now larger than the original Gyver/Guyver side which still uses the old spelling.
Recorded in several forms including Guiver, Gyver, and Guyver, this is an English surname. It is believed to be a metronymic or a name which descends from the mothers side of the family, rather than the more usual fathers or patronymic. However it is spelt, the surname is quite rare and a development of the Olde English pre 7th Century female personal name "Gifu". This was a word which originally meant a "gift".
The personal name was probably used mostly as a short form of any of the various compound personal names with "gifu" as a final element, such as "Aethelgifu", translating literally as "noble-gift", "Godgifu" ("gods gift"), and "Wulfgifu" (tte more prosaic "wolf-gift"!) Early examples of the surname recording taken from surviving charters and rolls of the medieval period include such examples as Richard Gyver of Ugley in the county of Essex who died in 1543, and Thomas Guiver and Martha Morning, who were married at the town of Chelmsford, also Essex, on February 3, 1693.
The first recorded spelling of the family name is believed to be that of Thomas Gyva. This was dated 1489, in the records of the town of Bishops Stortford, in the county of Hertfordshire, during the reign of King Henry VII, 1485 - 1509. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was sometimes known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.