The surname Farmer is of English origin. It was an occupational name derived from the Middle English, Old French ‘ferm(i)er’, the Late Latin ‘firmarius’. The term denoted in the first instance a tax-farmer, one who undertook the collection of taxes, revenues, and imposts, paying a fixed ( Latin ‘firmus’ ) sum for the proceeds, and only secondarily someone who rented land for the purpose of cultivation; it was not applied to an owner of cultivated land before the seventeenth century. That there are few families with this name is due to the fact that the custom of working land for which a money rent was paid did not arise until the latter part of the fourteenth century, long after surnames became fixed family names. In Scotland the name designated one who farmed the revenue, a tax collector. A man usually works eight hours a day in order to make his living, sleeps and rests eight hours, and devotes the remaining eight hours to eating, minor chores and recreation, although a part of the latter may be taken up in travelling to and from work. Since man’s work takes up such a large portion of his life it must be taken into consideration in any adequate system of identi…
Coat of arms: Argent, on a fesse be…