Recorded in many forms including Fabian, Fabien (English), Fabien (French), Fabijan and Pabian (Polish), and Fabigan, Pfabigan, Fabion, Fabel, Fabler (German), this is a surname which can only be described as European but is ultimately of Roman origin. It derives from the word "Fabius" a Roman tribal name which is belived to have derived from "faba" meaning bean. Whether this implied a market gardener, or whether it had some other more prosaic meaning, is unclear. It is said that the original popularity of the personal name, and hence in time the developed surname, resulted from the Christian revival period in the early medieval period of the 12th century, when the church spent a lot of time researching early saints. One of these was St. Fabius who it was claimed, was a 3rd century pope in Rome. A more likely origin given the wide ranging recording of the name is that it was a Crusader name, that is one brought back by warriors from the Crusades to free the Holy land from the Muslims, when it became fashionable to call ones child by early biblical names in honour of the fathers enterprise or survival! Early recordings include William Fabian of Essex in England, in the Curia Regis Rolls of 1148, and in Germany Valentin Fabiius of a burger of Freiberg in 1480, Johannes Fabel of Predigerordens in 1514, and Michael Fabler who married Anna Moersch Hausen, Rheinland, on Octoberb9th 1753..

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