Ferrer (surname)

[3][6][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 meaning iron, via the Catalan ferro, and thus shares a common occupational derivation with the most common English surname, Smith.

[14] The Ferrers family held the earldom of Derby and although the main line died out, some descendants in England still bear the name.

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.

[16] The Ferrer YDNA surname   project has only two males surnamed Ferrer and both belong to haplogroup 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.

[19] Distribution: in 1881 the Northampton postal area had the highest rate of occurrences of Ferrer per million surnames.