BRANDON MILLER

Transferred use of the surname, in origin a local name from any of various places so called, most of which get their name from Old English brōm ‘broom, gorse’ + dūn ‘hill’. In some cases it may be an altered form of Brendan. There has perhaps also been some influence from the surname of the Italian American actor Marlon Brando (1924–2004). In Britain the name has enjoyed a steady rise in popularity since the mid-1990s.

English and Scottish: occupational name for a miller. The standard modern vocabulary word represents the northern Middle English term, an agent derivative of mille ‘mill’, reinforced by Old Norse mylnari (see Milner). In southern, western, and central England Millward (literally, ‘mill keeper’) was the usual term. The American surname has absorbed many cognate surnames from other European languages, for example French Meunier, Dumoulin, Demoulins, and Moulin; German Mueller; Dutch Molenaar; Italian Molinaro; Spanish Molinero; Hungarian Molnár; Slavic Mlinar, etc.