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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : from Middle English bark ‘bark’ (Old Norse bǫrkr), hence a metonymic occupation name for a tanner. See also Barker.
  • North German : topographic name for someone who lived by a birch tree or in a birch wood, from berke ‘birch’, or alternatively for someone who lived on a mountain (see Barg).
  • Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : of uncertain origin, perhaps a variant of Barak.

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