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Surname Etymology and Meaning of BACHELOR

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Name meanings and etymologies are often disputed. The information here is compiled from freely available sources, and no claims whatsoever are made for accuracy, either historical or etymological.

From the Dutch Bock, a book, and leeraar, a doctor of divinity, law, or physic. When applied to persons of a certain military rank, it may be a corruption of Bas chevalier, because lower in dignity than the milites bannereti. Killian adopts the opinion that as the soldier who has once been engaged in battle, is called battalarius, so he who has once been engaged in literary warfare, in public dispute upon any subject. Calepinus thinks that those who took the degree of Bachelor, were so called (Baccalaurei), because a chaplet of laurel berries was placed upon them. The word, however, has probably but one origin, which would account for its various applications.

Source: An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names With an Essay on their Derivation and Import (1857).

English: variant spelling of Batchelor.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names (2003)