Berryman
An English surname most likely from borough-man, meaning a man of the borough or town.
The #4,717 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 41,073 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Berryman is usually explained as a reduced or altered form of borough-man, that is, a man of the borough, town, or municipal district. The first element goes back to Old English burh, borough, while the second reflects man. Some older writers also treated it as a possible baptismal or personal-name form, but the borough-man explanation is the standard one in the historical surname tradition.
History
The name is found in English records and later appears in Britain and North America. Older surname dictionaries also note spellings such as Berriman and Berghman, which suggest that the form has been influenced by pronunciation and spelling shifts over time. A few writers connect it with other 'reeve' or office-related surnames formed from medieval civic life.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some 19th-century surname writers thought Berryman might have developed alongside Borrowman as old civic words like borough and reeve fell out of everyday use.
From the historical record
“See Shirley's Noble aud Gcutle Men. BERRYMAN. See Burgh, and the teriuination MAK. BETTON. The ancestor of this family, Walter de Bettou, had a freehold estate at Be tton- Strange, near Shrewsbury, temp. Edward I. The head of the house changed his name to Bright not many years since. Shirley's Noble and Gentle Men.…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom