When Fernand François Collier was born on 17 June 1906, in Marck, Pas-de-Calais, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France, his father, Louis Collier, was 30 and his mother, Catherine Philomène Henriette Deblock, was 19. He married Marie Elisa Honvault on 16 April 1938, in Sainghin-en-Mélantois, Nord, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France. He died on 17 July 1981, in Lille, Nord, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France, at the age of 75, and was buried in Sainghin-en-Mélantois, Nord, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France.
English: from Middle English colier, in most parts of the country ‘maker or seller of charcoal’, but in some areas (such as Bolton le Moors and Wigan, Lancashire) where coal measures were near the surface, ‘miner or seller of coal’ (in the modern sense, ‘fossil fuel’). The name was taken to Ireland from England and was first recorded there in 1305. In Petty's ‘census’ of 1659, it was recorded as a principal surname in Meath.
English: occupational name from Middle English coilour, coliour, culliour, Old French coileor, coillour ‘tax collector’. Surnames with this origin seem to have died out in Britain.
French (northern): from collier ‘collar’, a metonymic occupational name for a maker of collars.
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