The pastor Surname
pastor Name Meaning and History
- 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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