W is for …

The latest in my ad hoc series on surname origins.

Based on: Reaney, P H, (ed. Wilson, R M), 1997, Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames, 3rd ed., OUP, Oxford, unless otherwise stated or implied.

Some commentators on this topic go into lots of detail about derivations, but it seems to me to be unnecessary, in most cases, to go further than the obvious, e.g. Sawyer was a man who used a saw to cut wood.

Wainwright