Mason

Mason is an English occupational surname turned given name, derived from the Old French word maçon, meaning a worker in stone, which itself traces back to a Frankish or Germanic root related to the act of building or cutting stone. The word entered English after the Norman Conquest and was used as a hereditary surname before transitioning into use as a masculine given name, a pattern common among English occupational surnames. Its popularity as a first name surged in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, particularly in the United States. Related names following the same surname-to-given-name trend include Hunter, Tyler, and Cooper.