Table of contents
Family name origins & meanings
- German or Dutch : topographic name for someone who lived on or by a hill or mountain, from Middle High German berc.
- Scandinavian : habitational name for someone who lived at a farmstead named with Old Norse bjarg ‘mountain’, ‘hill’. In Sweden this is commonly found as an element of ornamental names.
- Jewish (Ashkenazic) : ornamental name from German Berg ‘mountain’, ‘hill’, or a short form of any of the many ornamental surnames containing this word as the final element, for example Schönberg (see Schoenberg) and Goldberg.