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The Barbara Surname

Barbara Name Meaning and History

  1. Italian, Spanish and Portuguese (Bárbara), and English: from the female personal name Barbara, which was borne by a popular saint, who according to legend was imprisoned in a tower and later put to death by her own father for refusing to recant her Christian beliefs. The name comes from a feminine form of Latin barbarus, Greek barbaros ‘foreign(er)’ (originally an onomatopoeic word formed in imitation of the unintelligible babbling of non-Greeks).
  2. Catalan (Barbarà): variant of Barbera.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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Barbara Family Facts

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Barbara Average Life Expectancy Compared to the General Public

Compiled by Ancestry.com from the Social Security Death Index.

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The Barbara name in History

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