Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from any of various places called Barley. Those in Lancashire and West Yorkshire are named with Old English bār ‘wild boar’ or bere ‘barley’ + lēah ‘woodland clearing’. A place of the same name in Hertfordshire has as its first element an unattested Old English byname Be(o)ra (from bera ‘bear’).
- English : metonymic occupational name for a grower or seller of barley, from Old English bærlic, originally an adjective derivative of bær ‘barley’ (a byform of bere).
- Altered spelling of South German Behrle or Beerli, from a Germanic personal name formed with Old High German bero ‘bear’ (the animal).