Breaking down the surname of Rainwater, there is first ‘Rain’ which is the Middle French term ‘reyn’. For the word Water, is comes from the Old High German term ‘wazzar’ and an Old French term of ‘waeter.’ There is also a form from the Dutch language of ‘regan’ which means rain and ‘morter’ which refers to water. So a Dutch version would be ‘Van Regenmorter.’ Over the years it has been combined into the name ‘Rainwater’. The other versions of the name, especially using the word water include Reinwasser, Drinkwater, Reinwalter, Waters, Reignwater, Raynewater, Passwater, Rainworter, Raynemorter, Rainwaters and Atwater. From France came many Rainwater families to settle in Essex County in the southeast portion of England. Others from Germany also settled in England in the Middle Ages. Many with the Rainwater surname had ancestors originally come to America from Germany, Austria and England. One of the earliest record of a Rainwater was John Rainwater who was born 1695 in Virginia. John later moved to Surry County in North Carolina where he married Mary Fussell and raised a family. John Rainwater died in 1777 in North Carolina. There was Robert Rainwater who came in the early 1700s as an indenture servant to William Hurt in Virginia. By the early 19th century, the greatest concentrations of Rainwater families were in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. In the 1880s many Rainwater families had resettled into Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and out along the Pacific coast into Washington and Oregon. With the early 20th century the largest settlement of Rainwater families remained in the southeast portion of the United States, but many had moved to Oklahoma, California, New Mexico and into several northeast states. Famous individuals with the Rainwater surname include: Richard E. Rainwater (20th century financial investor and investment manager for the Bass family of Texas); Leo James Rainwater (worked on the Manhattan Project in the 1940s and was a Nobel Prize winner for Physics in 1975); Edwin R. Rainwater (19th century soldier in the Texas Army during the Texas War of Independence 1835-36 and with the Texas Mounted Volunteers with the Mexican-American War in 1847); Marvin K. Rainwater (a country music singer), Gregg A. Rainwater (singer, movie actor and later the art director for ‘America‘s Got Talent’ and ‘American Idol‘) and Major Charles C. Rainwater, who served in the Confederate Army with Brig. General Marmaduke and Brig. General John Clark Jr.).