ROSE MILLER

Ostensibly from the vocabulary word denoting the flower (Latin rosa). However, the name was in use throughout the Middle Ages, long before any of the other girls' names derived from flowers, which are generally of 19th-century origin. In part it may refer to the flower as a symbol of the Virgin Mary, but it seems more likely that it also has a Germanic origin, probably as a short form of various girls' names based on hros ‘horse’ or hrōd ‘fame’. The Latinate form Rohesia is commonly found in documents of the Middle Ages. As well as being a name in its own right, it is currently used as a short form of Rosemary and, less often (because of their different pronunciation), of other names beginning Ros-, such as Rosalind and Rosamund.

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.