Each family connects hundreds of people to form an intricate pattern of ancestors and descendants. Our origins span the world, our families come from all religions and ways of life. The common thread of Heraldry links many cultures and establishes the foundations of a Surname before words were a common understanding and images demonstrated a basic understanding to the populace.
This page represents the following Surnames: Ryder. Rider.
Heraldry for every family is represented on each page as it has become available through out our research, as a tribute to the historical and evolutionary process that each family has survived. Name definitions are provided for each family as we find a connection to them, through intermarriage or discovery. Scottish, English and Irish families are represented with tartans, badges and other memorabilia as it becomes available to us. We’ve worked very hard at finding the most accurate and appropriate connections for each surname, if you see an error or have more information to add, please contact us via e-mail at CSGS@SnowStones.com.
Ryder Name Meaning
‘Mounted warrior or messenger’. ‘Person who lives in a woodland clearing’, From a derivative of Old English rīed, rȳn ‘clearing, glade’.
Ryder Name Meaning and History
English and Irish: variant spelling of Rider.
Dutch: occupational name for a mounted warrior or messenger, Middle Dutch rider.
Rider Name Meaning and History
English: occupational name for a mounted warrior or messenger, late Old English ridere (from ridan ‘to ride’), a term quickly displaced after the Conquest by the new sense of Knight.
English: topographic name for someone who lived in a clearing in woodland. Compare Read 2.
Irish: part translation of Gaelic Ó Marcaigh ‘descendant of Marcach’, a byname meaning ‘horseman’. The Gaelic name is also Anglicized as Markey.
Americanized form of German Reiter.
Knight Name Meaning and History
English: status name from Middle English knyghte ‘knight’, Old English cniht ‘boy’, ‘youth’, ‘serving lad’. This word was used as a personal name before the Norman Conquest, and the surname may in part reflect a survival of this. It is also possible that in a few cases it represents a survival of the Old English sense into Middle English, as an occupational name for a domestic servant. In most cases, however, it clearly comes from the more exalted sense that the word achieved in the Middle Ages. In the feudal system introduced by the Normans the word was applied at first to a tenant bound to serve his lord as a mounted soldier. Hence it came to denote a man of some substance, since maintaining horses and armor was an expensive business. As feudal obligations became increasingly converted to monetary payments, the term lost its precise significance and came to denote an honorable estate conferred by the king on men of noble birth who had served him well. Knights in this last sense normally belonged to ancient noble families with distinguished family names of their own, so that the surname is more likely to have been applied to a servant in a knightly house or to someone who had played the part of a knight in a pageant or won the title in some contest of skill.
Irish: part translation of Gaelic Mac an Ridire ‘son of the rider or knight’.
Read Name Meaning and History
Nickname for a person with red hair or a ruddy complexion, from Middle English re(a)d ‘red’.
topographic name for someone who lived in a clearing, from an unattested Old English ried, r¯d ‘woodland clearing’.
Habitational name from various places: Read in Lancashire, the name of which is a contracted form of Old English r?gheafod, from r?ge ‘female roe deer’, ‘she-goat’ + heafod ‘head(land)’; Rede in Suffolk, so called from Old English hreod ‘reeds’; or Reed in Hertfordshire, so called from an Old English ryhð ‘brushwood’.
Markey Name Meaning and History
Irish (Monaghan): Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Marcaigh ‘descendant of Marcach’, a byname meaning ‘horseman’, ‘knight’, from marc ‘horse’.
Reiter Name Meaning and History
Occupational name for a mounted soldier or knight, from Middle Low German rider, Middle High German riter ‘rider’.
Variant of Reuter.
Habitational name for someone from any of various places in Germany and Austria called Reit or Reith.
Family Motto: ‘Tout Jour Prest’ (Always Ready)
Family Crest: 
Surname References from:
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
Encyclopedia of Surnames, John Ayto, A & C Black Publishers Ltd, ISBN 978 0 7136 8144 4
(Unless otherwise stated)