Family name origins & meanings
- Scottish : occupational name from Gaelic bàrd ‘poet’, ‘minstrel’, ‘singer’. See also Baird.
- Scottish : perhaps also a habitational name (early forms such as Henry de Barde and Richard de Baard are recorded, and ‘de’ usually signifies ‘from’), but no suitable place has been identified.
- French : habitational name from any of the several minor places called Bar(d), from the Gaulish element barro ‘height’, ‘hill’. Compare Barre.
- French : metonymic occupational name for someone who used a handcart or barrow in his work, from Old French bard ‘barrow’.
- French : from Old French bart ‘mud’, ‘clay’ (Late Latin barrum, apparently of Celtic origin), in which case it is either a topographic name for someone living in a muddy area or an occupational name for a builder or bricklayer.
- Hungarian (Bárd) : metonymic occupational name for a butcher, woodcutter or carpenter, from bárd ‘hatchet’, ‘cleaver’. Derivation from bárd ‘poet’ is unlikely because the word was borrowed from Gaelic only in the late 18th century.
- Jewish (Ashkenazic) : nickname for someone with a luxurious beard, from a blend of German Bart and Yiddish bord, both meaning ‘beard’.
- Probably also an altered spelling of German Bart.
- Peter Bard, a French Huguenot, came via London to DE and from there to Burlington, NJ, in the late 17th century.