AMANDA BAKER

A 17th-century literary coinage from the Latin gerundive (feminine) amanda ‘lovable, fit to be loved’, from amare ‘to love’. This is evidently modelled on Miranda; the masculine form Amandus, borne by various saints from the 4th to the 7th century, seems not to have been the direct source of the feminine form. The girl's name enjoyed considerable popularity in the mid-20th century.

English: occupational name, from Middle English bakere, Old English bæcere, a derivative of bacan ‘to bake’. It may have been used for someone whose special task in the kitchen of a great house or castle was the baking of bread, but since most humbler households did their own baking in the Middle Ages, it may also have referred to the owner of a communal oven used by the whole village. The right to be in charge of this and exact money or loaves in return for its use was in many parts of the country a hereditary feudal privilege. Compare Miller. Less often the surname may have been acquired by someone noted for baking particularly fine bread or by a baker of pottery or bricks.