GUY MILLER

From an Old French name, of Germanic (Frankish) origin, originally a short form of a compound name starting with witu ‘wood’ or wīt ‘wide’. This was adopted by the Normans and introduced by them to England. In Old French initial w- regularly became gu-. The usual Norman forms of the name were Gy or Guido. In medieval Latin the same name is found as Wido. It was a popular name among the Normans, enhanced no doubt by the romance of Guy of Warwick, recounting the exploits of a folk hero of the Crusades.

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.