Family name origins & meanings
- Northern Italian (Piedmont) : variant of Barberi. This is one of a class of surnames typified by the genitive plural suffix -is imparting the sense ‘belonging to’, ‘of’, in this case ‘the barber’s (or surgeon’s) family’.
- Greek : occupational name from barberis ‘barber’, from Italian barbiere (see 1), or a shortened form of a patronymic derived from this, such as Barberopoulos.