Squires

Variations – Squire, Squiers, Swires, Syiers
Racial Origin – Norman-French
Source – A title

While these names themselves are quite clearly of Norman-French origin, it does not necessarily follow that those who bear them are of Norman-French ancestry, though the chances are that in the majority of case such an assumption would happen to be correct.

All of these names come from the medieval title “esquire,” a title which was brought into England with the Norman-French feudal system.  In the period immediately following the Norman Conquest there was no middle class. The feudal system did not permit it. The population was clearly divided between the Norman-French nobility and the Anglo-Saxons, who, together with a smaller number of the Norman common soldiery, formed the vassal class.  But there were, of course, gradations among the nobility and the vassals, and it was out of the lower ranks of the one and the higher ranks of the other that the great middle class of more modern England was evolved.

“Esquires” formed the lowest class of the nobility.  They were youths who had not yet won their spurs, and it was their duty to carry the shields of the knights in whose service they were.

The family names derived from this word must be classified among the names of the later period, when feudalism began to disintegrate and the title of “esquire” lost its exact meaning, for in the earlier days it is inconceivable that mere esquires could have become the fathers of families and bequeathed the name, for esquires always either won their knighthood or were killed young in the continental fighting of this period.