The Scottish surname Weir, also found in Ireland and England, is a topographic name for someone who lived by a dam or weir on a river. The earliest reference to the name is Ralph or Radulphus de Ver. He was taken prisoner along with Richard the Lion in 1174; he later witnessed a charter by King William I sometime between 1174 and 1184. During the same period he gifted a bovate of land in Sprouston, Roxburgh to the Abbey of Kelso; his brother, Robert de Ver, was a witness to this charter. The Weirs of Blackwood, Lanarkshire, claim their descent from this Ralph de Ver The name is first recorded in the New World in 1685 when John Weir is recorded as arriving in New England. Today there are approximately 20,000 bearers of the name Weir living in the United States.