This name has presented a bit of difficulty for me over the years. It's my maiden name. And within the same family it has been seen as Bircher, Birtcher, Bercher and Burcher. But I am very confident in my findings that the families bearing the name Birtcher and those with any similar spelling who came from Sussex County, Delaware were initially recorded as Butcher for several generations. It is my supposition that these 'Butchers' where of German descent and maintained a German accent through several generations. Thus presenting an interesting disambiguation of the name Butcher into Birtcher. If this is the case then these Butchers'  may have been descended from Metzgers which is the German word for Butcher. I've heard tell that there was a family of Metzger's in norther Maryland/southern Delaware who did change from Metzger to Butcher in the early part of the 18th Century.

That being said, it is recorded in Dictionary of American Family Names as a variant of the name Bircher.

Robert Birtcher and Mariah Stephenson (107.32 kB)

Bircher

Meaning:

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4

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