Family name origins & meanings
- German : from Middle High German ban ‘area (of fields or woods) banned from agricultural or other use’, hence probably a topographic name for someone who lived by such a reserve. See also Banwart.
- English : of uncertain origin. Reaney suggests that it may be from an unrecorded Old English personal name Banna, or a metonymic occupational name for a basket maker, from Old French bane, banne ‘hamper’, ‘pannier’. Compare French Bane.