We welcome men with surname Singer (or variant), men and women with a known Singer (or variant) ancestor in any line, and men with a Big Y test that is a near match to the Y-DNA test of a Singer project member.

Singer variants include: Sanger, Seng, Senger, Singal, Singar, Singare, Singerman, Singere, Sjonger, Sjunger, Songer, Synger, Szinger, Zanger, Zenger, Zinger, and Zynger among others.

As its many variants reflect, Singer is an occupational surname in several languages. In English, the noun singer refers to two separate occupations: one sing-ing music, the other singe-ing fabric. Like all surnames, occupational surnames are subject not only to common phonetic spelling changes but also to pronunciation-preserving transliteration (eg German Singer to Hungarian Szinger). Occupational surnames are subject also to translation (eg German Singer to Hungarian Énekes) and to synonymy (eg Singer to Cantor). These changes can go in either direction.

As an occupational surname, Singer and variants have many separate origins. To delineate each separate origin we welcome cousins. Cousin subgroups are limited to 2–3 members with Big Y tests who are most closely related to a Singer or variant in the Singer project tree. Cousins are recruited from Singer project members' match lists and other FTDNA projects.

Related surnames with their own FTDNA Group Project: Chazanovich, Singletary, Singleton.

The German language suffix -inger forms a toponymic surname from a place name: Basinger, Kissinger, Messinger, Mosinger, Persinger and many other toponymic surnames are not related to Singer.

Many families have genealogical brick walls at migration events. The high potential for an occupational surname to change with migration makes our brick walls even stronger. Working together, we can leverage DNA to break through our walls.