AmeglioItalian There are two hypotheses: the first is it derived from the Latin name Amelius which came from Amius, name of Etruscan origin; the other is it derived from Amali, name of a mighty Ostrogothic family, which means "virgin of the forest".
AmparoSpanish (Philippines) Means "protection, shelter, refuge" in Spanish. It is taken from the title of the Virgin Mary, Nuestra Señora del Amparo, meaning "Our Lady of Refuge".
AmunategiBasque It literally means a "place of apple trees", denoting someone who lived and/or worked there.
AnamizuJapanese From 穴 (ana) meaning "hole" and 水 (mizu) meaning "water".
AnanVarious Anan (Hebrew: עָנַן ‘ānan) is used as both a Hebrew or Arabic name meaning "cloud, vapour" or descriptive "visible water vapour floating above the earth". The Arabic form is from Classical Arabic, possibly adopted from the Hebrew, but with the spelling (Arabic: عَنَان ‘anān) since the proper term of "cloud" in Arabic is saḥāb (سَحَاب).
AndronikashviliGeorgian Means "son of Andronikos". This was the name of a Georgian family of nobility that claimed descent from Andronikos I, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 1183-1185.
AneyEnglish English surname of uncertain origin, though it has been suggested that this is an anglicized form of French Ané. Ané itself is said to be taken from a personal name, possibly a gallicized form of Asnar or Aznar, which may be derived from Latin asinarius meaning "keeper of asses, ass-driver", from asinus "ass".
AngelouGreek (Cypriot) Means "son of Angelos" or "son of the angel" in Greek. A famous bearer is the American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou (1928-2014)
AngilloyCornish From an-kelli, "the grove"; or an-gilly, "the wood or grove of hazels".
ÅngströmSwedish Combination of Swedish ånga "steam" and ström "river, current, stream". A notable bearer was Swedish physicist Anders Ångström (1814-1874), one of the founders of the science of spectroscopy... [more]
AnnoJapanese Means "of hermitage" in Japanese. A famous bearer is famous Japanese illustrator and children's educational book author Mitsumasa Anno (1926-present).
AoikeJapanese 青 (Ao) means "blue, green" and 池 (ike) means "pond, pool".
ApaleNahuatl Possibly means "coloured water", from atl "water" and tlapalli "painting".
ApanecatlNahuatl Possibly related to Nahuatl apantli, "canal, channel, water ditch".
ApolloItalian, Spanish From the Greek personal name Apollo. There are several saints Apollo in the Christian Church, including an Egyptian hermit and monastic leader who died in 395 ad. The personal name derives from the name in classical mythology of the sun god, Apollo, an ancient Indo-European name, found for example in Hittite as Apulana "god of the gate" (from pula "gate", cognate with Greek pylē), therefore "protector, patron".
AppenzellGerman Habitational name for someone from Appenzell (village or canton) in northeastern Switzerland. The placename derives from Latin abbatis cella, "cell (i.e., estate) of the abbot".
ArachchigeSinhalese From the colonial-era Sinhala title ආරච්චි (arachchi) used to denote a native village headman combined with the suffix -ගේ (-ge) meaning "of, home, house".
ArakEstonian Arak is an Estonian surname meaning "arrak (an alcoholic liquor typically distilled from the sap of the coconut palm or from rice)".
ArakawaJapanese From 荒 (ara) meaning "rough, wild, violent" or 新 (ara) meaning "new" combined with 川/河 (kawa) meaning "river, stream."
AraseJapanese Ara means "wild" and se means "ripple".
ArboledaSpanish From arboleda meaning "grove of trees". This is the name of a prominent Colombian family, in which case it is derived from their region of origin in Arboleya, Spain.
ArchilaSpanish Either a variant of Arcila or derived from Arabic الشَّلَّال (aš-šallāl) meaning "the waterfall".
ArdzinbaAbkhaz Means "son of silver" from Abkhaz араʒны (aradzny) meaning "silver" and аҧа (apa) meaning "son".
AriesEnglish, French The name means either a person who worked in a fashion of the "Arras" cloth, as in the quotation "one bede Coveringe of Aries" (1562), or someone who was a former inhabitant of Arras in France, or Arras in Yorkshire; the latter being a particularly popular source of the name.
AriseJapanese Ari means "exist, have, possess" and se means "ripple".
ArisenEnglish (Modern) From a Dutch surname that means "son of Aris 2". In The Netherlands, this name is never used as a first name, since Dutch law strictly prohibits the use of surnames as first names... [more]
AshbrookEnglish Derived from Ampney St Mary, a small village and civil parish locally known as "Ashbrook", in Gloucestershire, England (recorded in the Domesday Book as Estbroce). It is named with Old English est meaning "east, eastern" and broc meaning "brook, stream".
AshfordEnglish Derived from Ashford, which is the name of several places in England. All but one of these derive the second element of their name from Old English ford meaning "ford" - for the one in North Devon, it is derived from Old English worō or worth meaning "enclosure".... [more]
AshmoreEnglish English locational name, from either "Aisemare", (from Old English pre 7th Century "aesc" meaning ash plus "mere" a lake; hence "lake where ash-trees grow), or from any of several minor places composed of the Old English elements "aesc" ash plus "mor" a marsh or fen.
AtatürkTurkish It means "Father of the Turks" in Turkish. It was given to the first Turkish president, Mustafa Kemal, by the Turkish Parliament in 1934.
AtempaMexican, Nahuatl (Hispanicized) Means "on the riverbank" or "on the bank of the lake", derived from Nahuatl atl meaning "water" combined with tentli "bank, shore" and the suffix -pan "in, on".
AtrdaeIranian Avestan originating surname meaning either "giving fire" or "creating fire".... [more]
AtreidesLiterature Used by Frank Herbert for the main character of first two novels of Dune, Paul Atreides, the heir of house Atreides. He probably based it on Ancient Greek Ἀτρείδης (Atreídēs), meaning "child of Atreus".
AtwellEnglish Topographic name from Middle English atte welle "by the spring or stream"
AuksiEstonian Auksi is an Estonian surname derived from "auks" meaning "in honor of".
AuricchioItalian "A nickname from a dialect variant of orecchio ‘ear’ (from Latin auricula)."
AusleyEnglish (Modern) Rare surname which was from an English place name in which the second element is Old English leah "wood, clearing". The first element may be hors "horse" (in which case the name likely referred to a place where horses were put out to pasture) or the river name Ouse (ultimately from the ancient British root ud- "water").
AvanceñaFilipino Hispanicised form of Arabic اِبْن سِينَا (ibn sīnā) meaning "son of Sina". This was the Arabic name for Avicenna (980-1037), a Persian polymath.
AvenNorwegian From the name of a farm, itself derived from Norwegian ave "mud, pool, dam; ebb, eddy in a river".
AvicennaArabic (Latinized) Latin form of Ibn Sina, an Arabic surname meaning "son of Sina". Ibn Sina was a famous Persian polymath most known for his canon on disease and medicine.
AviviHebrew Means "springlike" or "of the spring" in Hebrew. (see Aviv)
AvonEnglish From the toponym Avon, meaning "river". Alternatively, from the given name Avine, a pet form of Avis.
AydenEnglish, Scottish From a Scottish surname which was derived from Gaelic caol meaning "narrows, channel, strait".
AyohuaNahuatl Meaning uncertain, possibly from ayotli "squash, pumpkin" or ayotl "turtle" combined with the possessive suffix -hua, or from ayohua "to fill with water".
AziAfizere Azi is actually pronounced Azīh which means "Unending, in ended father of many generations" it is named after children believed to become the origin or source of lasting families.
Azuaje-fidalgoPortuguese (Rare), Spanish, Italian Fidalgo from Galician and Portuguese filho de algo — equivalent to "nobleman", but sometimes literally translated into English as "son of somebody" or "son of some (important family)"—is a traditional title of Portuguese nobility that refers to a member of the titled or untitled nobility... [more]
AzusagawaJapanese (Rare) Azusa (梓) means "catalpa", gawa/kawa (川) means "river", kawa changes to gawa due to rendaku. Sakuta Azusagawa (梓川 咲太) and his sister Kaede (梓川 花楓) from Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai are notable fictional characters who bear this surname.
BagrationiGeorgian Means "son of Bagrat" in Georgian. This was the name of a royal dynasty that ruled Georgia from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.
BaioItalian From a nickname for someone with light brown or reddish-brown hair or beard, from baio meaning "bay horse", ultimately derived from Late Latin badius meaning "red-brown".
BalkwillAnglo-Saxon (Archaic) From the Old English pre 7th Century balca, "beam", with wiell(a), "spring, stream", and probably refers to a primitive footbridge made by a tree trunk across the stream. The name may also be topographical for a dweller by the footbridge.
BaltimoreEnglish (American) From the name of the American city of Baltimore, and an anglicisation of Irish Gaelic Baile an Tí Mhóir meaning "town of the big house".
BandoJapanese It means "east of the slope", referring to eastern provinces of Osaka. The surname originates from there, and that is where it is most common.
BanovićSerbian, Croatian "Son of a Ban", the -ić "son of" suffix with ban, the title of class of Croatian nobility beginning in the 7th century approximately equivalent to viceroy, lord or duke, stemming potentially from the Turkic bajan ("rich, wealthy").
BanwellEnglish Means "person from Banwell", Somerset ("killer spring (perhaps alluding to a contaminated water source)").
BaramHebrew Combination of the word am, means "people, nation" and the name Bar. This surname means "son of the nation" in Hebrew and its variant is Ambar which is the same elements but in reverse order.
BardellEnglish Originally meant "person from Bardwell", Suffolk ("Bearda's spring"). A fictional bearer of the surname is Mrs Bardell, Mr Pickwick's widowed landlady in Charles Dickens's 'Pickwick Papers' (1837), who misconstrues an innocent remark about having a companion as a marriage proposal, which leads to her suing Pickwick for breach of promise.
BardwellEnglish From the name of a town in Suffolk, derived from Old English "Bearda’s spring", or a combination of breord "rim, edge, brim" and wella "well, spring, stream".
BarinovRussian Means "son of the boyar" from Russian барин (barin) meaning "boyar, nobleman".
BarkSwedish Perhaps derived from a place name containing either Old Swedish *barke "throat", Old Swedish biork "birch tree" or Swedish bark "bark (covering of the trunk of a tree)"
BarnabyEnglish Either (i) means "person from Barnaby", Yorkshire ("Beornwald's settlement"); or (ii) from the medieval male personal name Barnaby, the English form of Barnabas, a biblical name ultimately from Aramaic Barnabia "son of Nabia".
Bar NaimHebrew Combination of Bar and Naim with the meaning of "son of pleasantness".
BarnewallAnglo-Norman, Irish A locational surname given to those who lived by a stream in either Cambridgeshire, which derives its name from the Olde English beorna meaning "warrior" and wella meaning "stream", or from one in Northamptonshire, which got its name from the Olde English byrge meaning "burial mound" and well, which also means "stream." a burial mound and 'well(a)'... [more]
BarnoItalian, Ukrainian, French, Ancient Aramaic, Russian The surname Barno was first found in the north of Italy, especially in Tuscany. The name occasionally appears in the south, usually in forms which end in "o," but the northern forms ending in "i" are much more common... [more]
BaronJewish From German or Polish baron or Russian барон (baron) meaning "baron". In Israel the name is often interpreted to mean "son of strength" from Hebrew בר און (bar on).
BarskiyUkrainian Means "of Bar", referring to the city of Bar in the Vínnitsya Oblast.
BartholomewEnglish From a medieval personal name, Latin Bart(h)olomaeus, from the Aramaic patronymic bar-Talmay "son of Talmay", meaning "having many furrows", i.e. rich in land. This was an extremely popular personal name in Christian Europe, with innumerable vernacular derivatives... [more]
Bar YonahHebrew Means "son of Jonah" or "son of the dove" from Hebrew yonah "dove".
BaskinJewish Means "son of Baske", a Yiddish female personal name (a pet-form of the Biblical name Bath Seba). Baskin-Robbins is a US chain of ice-cream parlours founded in Glendale, California in 1945 by Burt Baskin (1913-1969) and Irv Robbins (1917-2008).
BaşoğluTurkish Means "son of the leader" from Turkish baş meaning "leader, head".
BassettEnglish From Old French bas meaning "short", low". It was either used as a nickname for a short person or someone of humble origins.