Barnes Family History

English: habitational name from Barnes (on the Surrey bank of the Thames in London) named with Old English bere-ærn ‘barn a storehouse for barley and other grain’ or a topographic name or metonymic occupational name for someone who lived by or worked at a barn or barns from Middle English barn ‘barn granary’. English: variant of Barne with excrescent -s derived from either the Middle English personal name Bern Barn (based on the Scandinavian personal name Biǫrn or Old English Beorn both from a word meaning ‘warrior’) or from Middle English barn (Old Norse barn) ‘child’.

The latter term is found as a byname for men of the upper classes; it might also have had the meaning ‘young man of a prominent family’ like Middle English child (see Child). Irish: in Ireland in many cases this is no doubt the English name but in others it is possibly an Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Bearáin ‘descendant of Bearán’ a byname meaning ‘spear’.

French: variant of Bernes a derivative of a short form of an ancient Germanic personal name formed with ber(n) ‘bear’ e.g. Bernhard. Jewish: variant of Parnes.