This surname is derived from an occupation. 'the waferer,' a wafer-baker, also a wafer-seller. Wafer, a small thin sweet or spiced cake, 'a thin leaf of paste' (Skeat).

'Singers with harpes, baudes, wafereres, Which ben the veray devils officeres.': Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales.

'Than Haukyns wif thewafrer.' Piers Plowman, Vision, 8956.

'Pay to Ralph Crast, the waferer, 40l. of our gift': Issues of Exchequer, 26 Henry nr.

'Cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers': Lev.

Simon le Waffrer, Herefordshire, Henry III-Edward I: Testa de Nevill, sive Liber Feodorum, temp. Henry III-Edward I.

Robert le Wafre. Salop, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

William le Wayfre. Placitorum in domo capitulari Westmonasteriensi.

John the Wanerer, Gloucestershire, 1290: Household Exp., Bishop Swinfield, Cam. Soc.

Lambert le Wafrer, Close Roll, 10 Edward II.

Theobald Wayferer, Yorkshire Testamenta Eboracensia (Surtees Society).

1618. Married — William Lovitt and Ann Wafer: St. James, Clerkenwell.

1638. Buried — Mr. Edward Wayferrer: St. Michael, Cornhill.

1667. Myrth Waferer, of Winchester, D.D., and Mrs. Elizabeth Wroth, of Blenden Hall, Bexley, Kent: Marriage Lic. (Canterbury).

I do not find any existing examples in England, but I doubt not they exist. Perhaps Weaver has absorbed this surname.

The second of the two variants given above is now the more usual in Dublin, while Wafer as well as Weafer is still found in Co. Wexford, with which county it has been mainly associated in modern times. Earlier, however, it belonged rather to the midlands of Leinster; there, particularly in Co. Meath, the name occurs frequently in mediaeval records. In the Patent Rolls, for instance, it appears 13 times between 1303 and 1427, all in Leinster but none in Co. Wexford. The earliest reference I have met is dated 1292 when William Wafre, also called le Wafere, was a tenant at Corbally, Co. Meath. In the sixteenth century the connexion with Co. Wexford begins to appear, for an official despatch of 1536 describes Peter Waffre as a “King's enemy” in that county. But the name was still to the fore in Meath and we find it in all classes of society. Nicholas Wafer, for example, was one of the kern recruited in Meath for service in England in 1544; in 1598 the Wafers are named among the leading gentry of Co.

Meath, while one Waffer, of Ballemoy in the barony of Ballighkeen, is so described in a similar list for Co. Wexford.

In some places the name is said to have been changed to Weaver but I have seen no evidence of this.

Such a change would be etymologically wrong, since Weafer and Wafer derive from an old word waferer i.e. a maker of eucharistic wafers.

Metonymic for Waferer, q.v.

This is derived from the Old-English waferer (maker of eucharistic wafers) not from weaver.

It is in Ireland since the thirteenth century-from the sixteenth mainly in Co. Wexford. SIF 152

The same as Wefer, Wiffer, Weber, Veber, Webber, Wheaver, Weever, Weaver (in H.R. Textor).