American Family Name Origins:
Ackerman
Frequency: (10229)
(number of times this surname appears in a sample database of 88.7 million names, representing one third of the 1997 US population)
1. Dutch: occupational name from akkerman ‘plowman’; a frequent name in New Netherland in the 17th century. Later, it probably absorbed some cases of the cognate German and Swedish names, Ackermann and Åkerman respectively.
2. English: from a medieval term denoting feudal status, Middle English akerman (Old English æcerman, from æcer ‘field, acre’ + man ‘man’). Typically, an ackerman was a bond tenant of a manor holding half a virgate of arable land, for which he paid by serving as a plowman. The term was also used generically to denote a plowman or husbandman.
3. Variant of German and Jewish Ackermann.
See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.
