Beaver

If your family name is Beaver and you don't know anything in particular about your name, you have three basic choices:

• You have a Norman ancestor that came from a place called Beauvoir, meaning "nice view".


• You have an acestor that was hard working and earned the nickname "the Beaver", "bevere" in Medieval Engligh.


• You have an acestor that people thought looked like a beaver and thus earned the nickname.

Well known variations on the theme are Beevor and Belvedere. All of this according to The Oxford Names Companion.

PS The picture is from Shutterpoint and named "Beaver Activity", taken by Lloyd Owen