What is "gomery"

Gomery is a rare surname found mainly in the United Kingdom, France and North America. In some cases Gomery has arisen by a process of aphaeresis, where the Mont- has gradually been lost from the surname Montgomery, a place name in Normandy. This place name is already associated with the first name Gomery and means "Gomery's hill". Gomery was the name of the owner, originally Gumaric, Germanic personal name, that is a compound of two elements: guma "man" ( Old English guma; brȳdeguma > bridegroom; German: Bräutigam) and ric "power" (Old English rīc in "bishopric"). This Germanic name still survives today in the German first name Gumarich.

In England in the 18th century, it was concentrated in the county of Worcestershire and had frequent variants as Gumery or Gummery. By the time of the 1881 census of England and Wales it was still concentrated in the Midlands region, but had spread to other industrial centres in the country. In the 1881 census of England and Wales there were 75 people recorded with the surname Gomery. In 2002 there were 152 persons with the surname Gomery in England and Wales, making it the 25,427th most common surname.