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Surname Etymology and Meaning of RIDER

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.

1. English: occupational name for a mounted warrior or messenger, late Old English ridere (from ridan ‘to ride’), a term quickly displaced after the Conquest by the new sense of Knight.
2. English: topographic name for someone who lived in a clearing in woodland. Compare Read 2.
3. Irish: part translation of Gaelic Ó Marcaigh ‘descendant of Marcach’, a byname meaning ‘horseman’. The Gaelic name is also Anglicized as Markey.
4. Americanized form of German Reiter.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names (2003)