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The parson Surname

parson Name Meaning and History

  1. English: from Middle English persone, parsoun ‘parish priest’, ‘parson’ (Old French persone, from Latin persona ‘person’, ‘character’), hence a status name for a parish priest or perhaps a nickname for a devout man. The reasons for the semantic shift from ‘person’ to ‘priest’ are not certain; the most plausible explanation is that the local priest was regarded as the representative person of the parish. The phonetic change from -er- to -ar- was a regular development in Middle English.
  2. Americanized form of one or more like-sounding Jewish names.
  3. Americanized spelling of Swedish Pärsson, Persson (see Persson).

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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The parson name in History

A unique volume of fascinating facts, statistics and commentary following the parson family name as far back in history as possible.

parson Family Facts

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Distribution of parson Families in the US in 1920
Number of parson families
 136-270
 46-135		 1-45
 0
Compiled by Ancestry.com from the 1920 US Federal Census records

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