Walker

기원 및 역사

Occupational surname from Old English 'wealcere', denoting a 'walker' — a cloth worker who trod or 'walked' woollen cloth in a trough of water to clean and thicken it, a process known as fulling. This was a crucial trade in medieval Scotland's wool economy, particularly in the Border towns and Lowland burghs. The Scots equivalent 'Fuller' is less common, making Walker the predominant form of this occupational name in Scotland. Walker is distributed broadly across the Lowlands and is especially common in the textile-producing counties of the south and east.