Re: Trying to help out a friend!
in reply to a message by jeneefir
Are you sure it isn't Mercadier? According to Hanks & Hodges's A Dictionary of Surnames, Mercadier is a family name going back to an Old Provencal word for "tradesman." Personally I would think it likely that if this person is an American of French descent, that Mercadier is a surname somewhere in his ancestry that has been turned into a given name.