from Middle English pass(en)
‘to pass or go across’ + more ‘marsh’, ‘fen’, a nickname,
bestowed no doubt on someone who lived on the far side of a tract of
moorland near the main settlement, or for someone who was familiar
with the safe routes across a moor.
several early forms have
-e- in place of -o- in the second syllable, and may have
a different origin. They could derive from an Anglo-Norman French
nickname for a seafarer, Passemer, from passe(r) ‘to
cross’ (as above) + mer ‘sea’, ‘ocean’, or the second element
could be from Old English mere ‘lake’, ‘marsh’.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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