Stringer (pronounced to rhyme with "ringer") is an English occupational surname and occasionally used as a given name. It originally denoted a maker of rope or strings, and especially those for the famous English longbows used for both hunting and war. It is based on an agent derivative of the Old English streng, meaning "string," which is in turn based on the Old Norse strengr. In Yorkshire, where it is still particularly common, George Redmonds argues that the surname may have been connected with ironworking, a stringer having operated some form of specialist hearth.^[1]

Early examples of the surname recorded in authentic registers and charters of the medieval period include:

Roger le Strenger in 1293, Yorkshire;

Lady Godwyna Strenger in 1328, Somerset;

Richard Stringer, in 1679, a footsoldier of Barbados.^[2]

The first recorded spelling of the family name is believed to be that of Walter Stringere, which was dated 1194, in the Curia Regis Rolls for Wiltshire.^[2]

• Marty Stringer, played by John Michael Higgins in Evan Almighty
• Mr. Stringer, the part that Davis played alongside his wife Margaret Rutherford in four Miss Marple films
• Stringer Bell, a fictional character on The Wire, whose name is a composite of two real Baltimore criminals', Stringer Reed and Roland Bell
• Mr. Stringer, played by Rowan Atkinson in The Witches (1990 film) and by Stanley Tucci in The Witches (2020 film)

• Stringer (disambiguation)
• Strenger