The modern word means something the surname never did
6% · 10 of 159
The word survived but drifted. Walker was a fuller, Barker a tanner, Green a village common. The surname kept the old sense; the language moved on without it.
Walkernot one who walks — a fuller who trampled cloth
Greennot the colour — the village common
Stewartnot a title — the keeper of the pig sty
Baileynot a town — a bailiff, an officer of the court
Websternot a male weaver — a woman who wove
Chapmannot a shopkeeper — a travelling pedlar
Marshallnot a rank — a servant who kept the horses
Palmernot a palm grower — a pilgrim back from the Holy Land
Pagenot a sheet of paper — a boy at court
Barkernot one who barks — a tanner who stripped oak bark
How this is counted. The rule is a mismatch: the modern dictionary sense of the word differs from the sense the surname was formed on. Both senses have to be in the database, otherwise the surname is not counted.
The frequency here — 6% — is measured against
159 surnames, which is our corpus and not the English language.
Run the same rule over a different corpus and the number will differ; what will not
differ is which surnames carry the marker, because that is decided by the string,
not by the sample.