Serrurier

Recorded in several forms including Serraillier, Serrier, Serrurier, and possibly others, this is generally a French medieval occupational surname. It describes either a locksmith, or possibly according to the Dictionnaire Etymologique de France, is locational from a place called Serre of which there are examples in the departements of Ain, Ardeche, Meurthe-et-Moselle and others. The meaning of these place names is believed to be literally "hot house," but they may have the more pragmatic meaning of a bath house, or perhaps even a sunny place, one which gets particularly hot. In the British Isles locational surnames tend to be "from" names. That is to say names given to people after they have left their original villages to move somewhere else. If however they have the prejoritive ending of "-er" this indicates that either they are a skilled worker in thatparticuar trade or they are "of a place," and this appears to be the case here. Unfortunately we have a problem with many French surnames in that during the famous Revolution of 1792 almost all church registers were destroyed, making accurate research very difficult. However a department that seemed to escape the worst was Meurthe-et-Moselle and here we found good examples of this name including Nicholas Serrier at Loromon on December 13th 1618, whilst Jacques Serrailler was recorded at Moustiers-ste- Marie, Basses-Alpes, on February 3rd 1688, and Leopold Serriere at Rosieres-aux-Salone, Meurthe-et-Moselle on September 7th 1747.