The barley Surname
barley Name Meaning and History
- English: habitational name from any of various places called Barley. Those in Lancashire and West Yorkshire are named with Old English bar ‘wild boar’ or bere ‘barley’ + leah ‘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).
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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