English, Portuguese, Galician, Spanish, Catalan, and French:
occupational name for a shepherd, Anglo-Norman French pastre
(oblique case pastour), Portuguese, Galician, Spanish, Catalan,
pastor ‘shepherd’, from Latin pastor, an agent
derivative of pascere ‘to graze’. The religious sense of a
spiritual leader was rare in the Middle Ages, and insofar as it occurs
at all it seems always to be a conscious metaphor; it is unlikely,
therefore, that this sense lies behind any examples of the surname.
German and Dutch: humanistic name, a Latinized form of
various vernacular names meaning ‘shepherd’, for example Hirt
or Schäfer (see Schafer).
Americanized
spelling of Hungarian Pásztor, an occupational name from
pásztor ‘shepherd’.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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