Pybus Family History

English (Yorkshire and Durham):: perhaps a nickname for someone with a prickly temperament from Middle English pikebush ‘prickle bush’ later simplified to Pybus(h) or Pybus(k). The word probably denoted a plant such as bramble, gorse, or wild rose.

The change may have been influenced by folk etymology, re-interpreting the name as pie ‘magpie’ + bush from the habit of magpies of perching on top of tall bushes.

Alternatively, a topographic or habitational name for someone who lived by a pikebush ‘prickle bush’ or in a locality so named.