From Latin “Oliva” - an Olive Branch. Intro­duced from France to Holland and so to the Cape.

(English, French) Descendant of Oliver, or Olivier (elf, host, or an olive tree).

(French) One who possessed an olive grove; descendant of Olivier (the olive).

French Olive-tree. The Oliviers of Potterne are of French extraction, being descended from an old family settled at Nay. B.L.G.

The surname Olivier has had a long and complex history m Louisiana. Several individuals of that name, apparently unrelated, came to the colony during the eighteenth century some directly from France, others via Canada.* Lack of adequate records precludes tracing the blood lines of many of these families, but the history of others is better known, making possible a plausible explanation tor the present distribution of Oliviers mainly in three sections of the state: New Orleans, the Teche country and in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes The most renowned line of Louisiana's Oliviers stems from Pierre-François-Marie Olivier de Vezin, born in 1/16, scion of one of the lesser noble families of Champagne-Lorraine, northeastern France.

Educated as an engineer Pierre-François in 1736 migrated to Canada, and in 1747 was appointed ''grand voyer et arpentuer général'' (basically, overseer of public works) for Lower Louisiana.

Settling in New Orleans with wife Joséphine-Marie Duplessis, Pierre-François and his immediate descendants were among the most respected individuals of eighteenth century New Orleans society. Of his four sons, apparently three (and most of their descendants) remained permanently in the New Orleans area: Pierre-Louis d'Ernville (marriage and issue unknown), Charles-Frédéric de Forcelle (m. 1777 Marie-Françoise de la Mollère d'Orville), and Nicolas-Joseph-Godefroy (m.

1782 Eulalie Toussaint de Beauregard, 1789 Marie-Marianne Bienvenu).

Nicolas-Joseph-Godefroy Olivier a prominent New Orleans merchant, owned and operated a sizable plantation on Bayou Terre-aux-Boeufs in St.

Bernard Parish.

Pierre-François' eldest son, Charles-Honoré de Vezin (m. 1776 Marie-Magdeleine de Mandeville) lived until the late 1790s on his plantation at Cannes Brulées (near present Kenner, above New Orleans);6 about that time he and his family moved to the Attakapas, settling near St. Martinville on Bayou Teche, there starting a new branch of the Olivier de Vezin line.

His two sons, Charles (m. 1798 Céleste-Mathilde DeBlanc) and Pierre du Closel (m. 1802 Jeanne De Vince Bienvenu, 1812 Marie-Josephe Latiolais), and most of their descendants remained in the Teche area, establishing plantations and farms in St. Martin, Lafayette, and St. Mary parishes, where a large number of Oliviers live today.

In the early 1770s a Maurice Olivier, unrelated to the le Vezin line and of unknown provenience, settled in the Opelousas District with his wife Catherine Lejeune.

His only son, Joseph (m. ca. 1802 Marguerite Mayer, 1809 Anne Hébert) founded this line of Oliviers in the Grand Coteau-Arnaudville area, upper Teche, where many of his descendants now live.

By the 1890s several descendant families had moved into the western part of old St. Landry Parish,11 and the Opelousas contingent was reinforced in the early 1800s by the migration of Noël Olivier of St. James Parish (m. 1830 Louise Duplechin) to the Church Point area.

Again, in the early 1770s, still another line of Oliviers was begun in St. John the Baptist Parish by François Olivier and Catherine Michel of Saintonge, west-central France.

Their elder son, François, Jr., and wife Marianne Keller remained in St. John, but were without issue; son Jean-Baptiste (m. ca. 1799 Dorothée Lagrange), however, by 1802 had moved to Bayou Lafourche in Assumption Parish, where most of his six children were born.

When grown his two sons, François (m. 1822 Pauline Bourg) and Pierre-Zépherin (m. 1824 Marie-Delphine Exnicios), moved down-bayou to the vicinity of Thibodeauville and into Terrebonne Parish.

The nine sons of Pierre-Zépherin firmly established the Olivier name in Terrebonne before the Civil War, some settling along Bayous Black and Chacahoula, others along Bayous Terrebonne and Du Large