Biffen Family History

Perhaps a variant of Bevin which has sometimes been confused with Welsh Bevan. The devoicing of /v/ to /f/ between vowels is unexpected however especially in SW England where intervocalic /v/ was normal dialectal usage.

Bevin is well attested in Somerset from medieval times, possibly for someone who lived by a fen (Middle English bi + fen) but the earliest forms are too late to be confident about this explanation.

See Fenn.