Lester

Variations – Leicester
Racial Origin – English
Source – A Locality   

In virtually every country, with the exception of Ireland, a very large proportion of the family names have been developed from the names of places.

Sometimes these were the names of the places over which the family ruled, but more often, for the bulk of the population naturally fell within the classification of the ruled rather than the rulers, the names were first used merely to indicate the locality from which the persons hearing them had come.

Such names, too, it should be noted, were used only when the persons bearing them actually had left the localities and had settled or were traveling in other parts.  It would constitute no differentiation to give a man the name of a place in which he was still living, together with hundreds, or probably thousands, of others.

The form Leicester gives a better idea of the source of this family name than Lester, though the latter is by far the more common name.  The place, however, is still known as Leicester, it is a borough in England.  The Anglo-Saxons, upon their invasion and settlement of England, found the place known simply as “Castrum,” for it had been, a century or two before, a Roman camp.  To distinguish it from other places of similar name, they called it “Leagceaster,” or “meadowcamp.” In the early use as a family name the custom was to prefix the Norman “de” (“of”) or the equivalent Anglo-Saxon expression.