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WELLER Family History

There are two possible sources of this Anglo-Saxon surname, the first being that it is an occupational name for a salt boiler, one who extracted the salt from sea water, an important medieval occupation. The derivation is from the Olde English pre 7th Century "wiellan", or "wellan", meaning to "boil". Job-descriptive surnames originally denoted the actual occupation of the namebearer, and later became hereditary. However, Weller may also be a topographical name for a person who lived near a spring or a well, with the derivation from the Olde English "well(a)", with the Middle English development "well(e)".