BEVERLEY BAKER

Transferred use of the surname, which is from a place in East Yorkshire named with Old English beofor ‘beaver’ + lēac ‘stream’. The spelling Beverly is the usual form of the name in America, where association with Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, the district where many film stars live, may have been a factor in its popularity.

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.