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".
AquilinaMaltese Nickname for a person with eagle-like features or a person who owned an eagle, derived from Latin aquila meaning "eagle".
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)".
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.
ArdernEnglish Means "eagle valley" or "gravel valley". From Old English ear "gravel" or eran "eagle" and denu "valley". Also a variant of Arden.
ArdzinbaAbkhaz Means "son of silver" from Abkhaz араʒны (aradzny) meaning "silver" and аҧа (apa) meaning "son".
ArıTurkish Means "bee" or "clean, pure" in Turkish.
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.
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]
ArmijoSpanish Derived from the Spanish adjetive "armigero", meaning "one who bears arms". First found in the Northern Region of Spain in Cantabria. Alternate spellings include: Armijos, Armigo, and Armija.
ArundelEnglish English surname which comes from two distinct sources. Either it was derived from a place name meaning "horehound valley" in Old English (from harhune "horehound (a plant)" and dell "valley"), or it was from Old French arondel, diminutive of arond "swallow", which was originally a Norman nickname given to someone resembling a swallow.
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.
AssaratanakulThai From Thai อัสสะ (atsa) meaning "horse", รัตนะ (ratana) meaning "precious gem; precious jewel", and กุล, a transcription of Pali kula meaning "clan".
AstoreItalian Derived from Italian astore meaning "goshawk", which is a bird of prey that was used for hunting in the Middle Ages. The surname had first started out as a nickname: either for a falconer, or for a person who had aquiline features or who was cunning by nature.
AsuiJapanese (Rare) From Japanese 蛙 (a) meaning "frog" and 吹 (sui) meaning "puff"
AsusaarEstonian Asusaar is an Estonian surname meaning "resident (of) island" ("island dweller/resident").
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".
AtenFrisian, Dutch The Frisian name Aten means "Noble Wolf". The name was probably given to lesser lords. As noble would mean nobility. As wolf was always a symbol of a warrior, or hunter. Usually Nobles who were also warriors, were lesser lords... [more]
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.
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.
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]
AzzopardiMaltese Possibly derived from the Hebrew term סְפָרַדִּי (s'faradí) used to refer to Jews originating from Iberia (called Sephardim or Sephardic Jews). It may also be of Greek origin from a word meaning "black, Mauritanian" or "soldier" with a connection to Middle Persian spʿh "army" used to refer to a person of African descent or someone who worked as a mercenary... [more]
BabrauskasLithuanian Ultimately from the Balto-Slavic element *bébrus meaning "beaver". It is possibly an adaptation of Polish Bobrowski, or a related Slavic surname.
BacatanFilipino, Cebuano Derived from Cebuano bakat meaning "billow, large wave of water".
BacigalupoItalian From Ligurian bacigare "to beat with a stick" and lupo "wolf", or from Genoese basigâ "to swing, to tease" and lupo "wolf". Possibly a nickname for someone considered courageous or cowardly, or an occupational name for a hunter.
BaerGerman Derived from Old High German bero "bear".
BaffaItalian The origins of this surname are uncertain, but it may be from Italian baffo "mustache", with the Latinate feminine suffix probably due to the influence of the word famiglia "family". Alternatively it may be Albanian in origin, of unexplained meaning.
BagaoisanFilipino, Tagalog From Tagalog bagwisan meaning "to grow wings" or "to pull out the wing feathers (of a bird)".
BagatsingFilipino Filipinized form of Bhagat Singh, a combination of Sanskrit भगत (bhagat) meaning "devotee, follower" combined with सिंह (siṃhá) meaning "lion". A notable bearer was Ramon Bagatsing (1916-2006), the 19th Mayor of Manila who was of Indian descent.
BaggeSwedish From Swedish bagge "ram (male sheep)".
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".
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.
BankokuJapanese (Rare) From Japanese 万国 meaning "all nations; the whole world; universal". The fact that it is homophonous as Japanese バンコク (Bankoku) meaning "Bangkok", the city in Thailand, is coincidental.
BanogonFilipino, Cebuano Means "hawklike" in Cebuano, ultimately from banog meaning "hawk".
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").
BansalIndian, Hindi, Punjabi Most likely derived from Sanskrit वंश (vansha) meaning "lineage, clan, race" or "bamboo".
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".
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.
BazzatyOssetian Derived from Georgian ბაზი (bazi) meaning "falcon" or from a given name derived from Tatar базу (bazu) meaning "to dare" (given in hopes that a son would become a warrior).
BearEnglish From the Middle English nickname Bere meaning "bear" (Old English bera, which is also found as a byname), or possibly from a personal name derived from a short form of the various Germanic compound names with this first element... [more]
BeccariaItalian From beccaro "butcher", ultimately from becco "goat".
BecerraSpanish, Galician Nickname probably for a high-spirited person from becerra "young cow, heifer". It may also have been a metonymic occupational name for a cowherd.
BeckemeyerGerman Beckemeyer is a surname of German origin. The name likely traces back to a place named Beckum, located in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The "-eyer" suffix could potentially mean "from" or "of" in this context, so " Beckemeyer " could translate to "from Beckum".
BecksonEnglish (British) The name comes from having lived in an enclosed place, means dweller at the old enclosure or dwelling. The surname Aldeman was first found in Essex, Suffolk and Yorkshire at Aldham. In all cases, the place name meant "the old homestead," or "homestead of a man called Ealda," from the Old English personal name + "ham."
BeddoesWelsh “This name derives from Old Welsh name and patronymic surname “Morgetuid / Margetiud”, composed of two elements: “mere” (great, splendid) plus “iudd” (lord). As a personal name the origins are lost in the mists of time but it is certainly pre Roman, however the modern use of the name is commonly taken from Merdydd ap Bleddyn, prince of Powys who died in 1132... [more]
BeeEnglish From Middle English be meaning "bee", Old English beo, hence a nickname for an energetic or active person or a metonymic occupational name for a beekeeper.
BeedenEnglish (British) Probably means "from Beeden", a village near Newbury in Berkshire. Ultimately coming from either Old English byden, meaning "shallow valley", or from the pre 7th century personal name Bucge with the suffix dun, meaning "hill of Bucge".
BenArabic (Maghrebi) Maghrebi variant of Arabic بْن (bn), a form of اِبْن (ibn) meaning "son (of), offspring". It is often used as a prefix for other Maghrebi patronymic names (such as Benali "son of Ali 1" or Ben Amor "son of Amor").
Ben AliArabic (Maghrebi), Comorian Maghrebi transcription of Arabic بن علي (bin Ali) meaning "son of Ali 1". A notable bearer was Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (1936-2019), who served as the president of Tunisia from 1987 to 2011.
Ben HadjArabic (Maghrebi) Means "son of the pilgrim"; the title Hadj refers to a Muslim who has successfully completed the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. This surname is mainly found in Tunisia.
BennounaArabic (Maghrebi) Most likely from Arabic بن (bin) meaning "son" and the given name Nouna, which may have been derived from an Arabic word meaning "whale, big fish" or "sabre, sword". Alternately, it may be from an Arabic name for a variety of melon... [more]
Ben OrHebrew Means "son of the light" in Hebrew. (see Or)