Ferrer (surname)

Ferrer is a surname popular in Catalan,[3] described in and has been brought to Spain in the 13th century by English-Scottish noblemen.[4][7][8][9] Ferrer is an occupational surname for a blacksmith or ironworker[1] as described by The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland- derived from the Latin word ferrum or ferrarius, Catalan ferro meaning iron, and thus shares a common occupational derivation with the most common English surname, Smith.[10] It is recorded in almost every country in Europe in the appropriate spelling, hence making it international in origin.[11] It is one of the most common Catalan surnames, ranked 35th in Catalonia.[5] The surname Ferrer is a Spanish variant of the surnames Farrar , which is a variant of the occupational name Ferror/Ferrour, Anglo Norman Ferrur,[12] Ferrier, Ferrers, and de Ferrers. According to Public Profiler, the surname Ferrer came to England from Spain[13]

The English surname – Ferrers is originally Norman unlike Ferrer or Farrar it is a locational name, see for instance, the lineage of the Baron Ferrers of Groby, deriving, in this instance, from the place name Ferrières-Saint-Hilaire, Walchelin de Ferrières (de Ferrers) having come to England with William the Conqueror. see the Battle Abbey Roll,[14] the Ferrers family held the earldom of Derby; although the main line died out, some descendants in England still bear the name Ferrers, a popular, but not well-documented belief is that some emigrated to Spain – e.g. the Scottish-English nobleman William Stewart Ferrer,[15][16] father of Saint Vincent Ferrer. Also, Bernard Ferrer, an English Knight, and Auchias Ferrer, a Scottish Lord, came from Britain to Spain – to aid in the restoration of Christian rule in Valencia.[17]

The name Ferrer has been identified in the court records of Aragon and by the Holy Office of the Catholic Church of Spain as a Sephardic (Jewish) surname. If you wish to research this aspect of the Ferrer family line of Spain.[18] It would appear that there are at least two branches of the same family in Spain (one Jewish, one Catholic) or two separate families with the same name.[19]

The Ferrer YDNA surname   project has only two males surnamed Ferrer and both belong to haplogroup is R-M269 ( International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) R1b1b2), known as the Western Atlantic Modal and the most common haplogroup in the western Atlantic region of Europe and the British Isles.[20]

One of the two has tested to basal SNP's to subclade R-372, which is a subclade of U106 and has most matches in Scandinavia.

In the Philippines, the first recorded surname of Ferrer dates back to 1824, in Pangasinan, the birth of Jose Padilla Ferrer.[21]