A male name. the name of one of the most famous of the peers of Charlemagne and hence a favourite medieval name. The French form was Olivier and it has usually been taken to be the Old French olivier, oliver ‘an olive-tree’, from Latin olivarius. Alternatively it has been derived from Norse Olaf (q.v.). But there is no evidence for the existence of a name Olivarius and almost all the other names connected with the older versions of the Charlemagne cycle are of Teutonic origin, whilst derivation from Olaf is phonetically difficult. Oliver may therefore represent some such name as Old German Alfihar (which is on record and is the equivalent of Old English Ælfhere ‘elf-host’) adapted later to a fancied derivation from olivarius. For the phonetic development compare mod German Olfert from Alfhard, and Olbrich from Alberich. Oliver first 0ccurs in England as the name of a sub-tenant in Domesday Book. It was moderately common in the Middle Ages (cf. the surnames Oliver, Olliver, Olver, Oliverson; and Ollier from the Breton form of the name), and continued so in the 16th and 17th C. After the Restoration it went completely out of fashion owing to association with Cromwell, and it was not until the end of the 19th C that it came back into general favour. The old nickname Noll is now seldom heard.

Oliverus Domesday Book 1086, Curia Regis Rolls 1199-1220. Oliver Close Rolls 1249, Hundred Rolls 1273. Holiver Yorks Poll Tax of West Riding of Yorkshire 1379 1379.