Explore the Family Name Pinnegar

The meaning of Pinnegar

English (southwestern): 1. perhaps from an unrecorded Middle English occupational term pan(n)ager, pen(n)ager, either ‘one who has the right of pannage’ (Old French pasnageour), or more likely ‘collector of pannage dues’, a sense recorded for medieval Latin pasnagator. The pannager would have been a manorial officer who collected pasturage rents from the villagers who put their pigs into the woods to forage for acorns, etc. 2. alternatively, perhaps a habitational name from Binegar in Somerset. This placename derives from Old English hangra ‘hanger, wooded slope’ with an uncertain first element, probably either the Old English female personal name Bēage (genitive Bēagen) or the word begen ‘berried, growing with berries’. 3. alternatively, perhaps, a variant of the occupational name Pillinger ‘maker of pilches (leather outer garments)’ (see Pullinger 1) with loss of the -n- and substitution of [l] by [n] to avoid association with the word pillager. Compare Pinegar 3.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.