FLOYD MILLER

Transferred use of the Welsh surname, in origin a variant of Lloyd. This form of the name results from an attempt to represent the sound of the Welsh initial Ll- using traditional English pronunciation and orthography. From the 1890s to the 1930s it was at its most popular in the United States.

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.