Variant of Tyler, an English occupational surname for a tile maker.
Tylor is an orthographic variant of Taylor, an occupational surname that crossed into the given-name column during the great American surname-as-firstname surge of the late 20th century. The root is Old French tailleur, itself from the Latin taliare, meaning "to cut" — specifically, to cut cloth. Medieval tailors were skilled guild members whose craft shaped how social rank was displayed; the name thus carries a quiet artisanal dignity beneath its modern surface.
Edward Burnett Tylor, the 19th-century British anthropologist who virtually founded the academic study of culture, is the most famous bearer of this particular spelling. His landmark 1871 work Primitive Culture gave anthropology its first formal definition of the word "culture" itself — a legacy that makes the Tylor spelling feel bookish in the best sense. In popular culture the name was carried forward by athletes and musicians who favored the unorthodox "y" spelling as a mark of individuality.
As a given name, Tylor peaked in the United States around the 1990s alongside Taylor, Tyler, and a constellation of phonetically similar choices. The -or ending gives it a slightly more masculine weight compared to Taylor's gender-neutral profile. Parents today who choose Tylor are often making a deliberate typographic choice — distinguishing their child from the crowd with a single swapped vowel, a small act of customization that the tailors of old would surely appreciate.