Family name origins & meanings
- German : from a nickname derived from Sorbian baran ‘ram’.
- North German : from a pet form of Bernhard.
- German : nickname for someone with a growth such as a sty on the eyelid.
- German or American spelling of Slovenian Bernik, from the northern part of central Slovenia, probably an archaic nickname from the noun bera ‘collecting’, from brati ‘to collect’, ‘to pick’, perhaps denoting a beggar or an impoverished man.