Where Does the Breier Surname Come From?

Clerks wrote Breuer in many ways, and Breier is one that stuck. Surname dictionaries give the meaning as “One who brewed beer; one who came from Brey, in Germany”.

• Spellings drifted because names were written down by ear in parish books, tax rolls and passenger lists.
• Spelled with “i” instead of “u”, Breier shows how the same name was heard and written differently.
• Breier ranked 25,445 in the 2010 US Census, with 972 people answering to the name.
• The same family of names includes Breyer.

Breier coat of arms

Arms linked to Breuer and its spellings were granted to individual families; our heraldry team traces which line they belonged to. For the full story, order the Breier surname pack.