Tyler

Tyler began as work before it became a name. The word comes from a Germanic root carried into English, where it labelled the craftsman who set tiles on a floor or roof. The meaning has never drifted far from that trade. A tiler, a tile-maker. Polish keeps it plain too, in dekarz, the person who makes and lays roof tiles.

The name stayed English in its associations, and one bearer fixed it in the record. Wat Tyler led the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 against the poll tax. His name announced his father's craft long before anyone gave it to a child.

Tyler crossed from surname to first name much later, mostly in English-speaking countries. On a Polish class register it still reads as an import, sitting oddly beside a Krzysztof or a Zofia. What it means underneath stays fixed. A worker in clay tiles, a dekarz.