Walker: A Surname History

Description

Walker: A Surname History — Volume 35 of The Surname Histories Series. The fuller’s trade — from Old English wealcere through Middle English walkere, the craftsman who “walked” the cloth by trampling it in the vat; Walker in the north and midlands, Fuller in the south-east, Tucker in the south-west — one trade, three surnames. WALKER stands No. 31 in the 2010 U.S. Census with 523,129 bearers — up from No. 28 in 2000 (501,307), a +4.4% rise (+21,822 bearers), one of America’s most evenly shared names (58.66% White, 35.05% Black) — sitting directly behind Robinson at #30 and completing the series’ eleven-book running echo (Lee #21 → Pérez #22 → Thompson #23 → White #24 → Harris #25 → Sánchez #26 → Clark #27 → Ramírez #28 → Lewis #29 → Robinson #30 → Walker #31). The signature story is Madam C.J. Walker (1867–1919) — born Sarah Breedlove, orphaned at seven, a St. Louis laundress who built the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company into an empire and was eulogized as America’s first self-made female millionaire — honored with one verified portrait plate: the 1919 portrait from The National Cyclopedia of the Colored Race (Wikimedia Commons, public domain); a gallery of bearers runs from Dr. Mary Edwards Walker — the only woman ever awarded the U.S. Medal of Honor — through Maggie Lena Walker, the first African-American woman to charter a U.S. bank, to Alice Walker, Pulitzer-winning author of The Color Purple; five heraldic plates — Walker of Berkswell Hall, Sir Edward Walker (Garter King of Arms), the Bushey Hall baronets, the Sand Hutton and Beachampton baronets, and the blank honest shield, drawn programmatically from published blazons — show why no single coat of arms belongs to a surname (Burke’s General Armory records sixty distinct Walker arms); and a gazetteer of Walker places maps Walker, Minnesota; Walker, Michigan; Walker, Iowa; and Walker, Missouri.