This interesting surname can be of Anglo-Saxon origin, being a locational name from a place in Lancashire so called, deriving from the Olde English pre 7th Century "hamor" meaning "rock" or "crag". It can also be of Flemish or Dutch origin, being a metonymic occupational name for a maker of hammers or a user of a hammer, deriving from the Old High German "hamar" meaning "stone" hence "a hammer made of stone". The name dates back to the 14th Century (see below). Further recordings include John de Heymer (1461) in "Baines History of Lancashire". Variations in the idiom of the spelling include Hamor, Hammor, Hammer. One Katerina Hamer married Thoma Anderson, at St. Andrew's, Enfield on July 22nd 1560, and Ralph, son of Ralph Hamer, was christened at St. Nicholas Acons, London, on February 16th 1589. Edward and James Hamer, famine emigrants, sailed from Liverpool to New York aboard the "Windsor-Castle" on June 9th 1847. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of John Le Hammer, which was dated 1332, in the "Pipe Rolls of Sussex", during the reign of King Edward 111, known as "The Father of the Navy", 1327 - 1377. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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