Bird
A nickname surname from the bird, likely applied to someone thought to be lively, light, or bird-like.
The #1,041 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 9,228 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Bird is a straightforward surname based on the common English word for a bird, from Old English words for a young bird or bird in general. In surname use, it most likely began as a nickname for someone thought to resemble a bird in some way—by movement, voice, appearance, or temperament. Some older writers also treated it as one of the many animal-based sobriquets that became hereditary surnames.
History
The surname is well established in England and later spread to other English-speaking countries. Early surname writers grouped it with a large class of animal nicknames that became fixed family names. It remains common enough in modern Britain and the United States to be familiar but not especially frequent.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname scholars often used Bird as a model example of how a plain animal nickname could become a hereditary surname.
From the historical record
“contracted to Birsty, BIRD. See Birds. ^^BIPiDS, Names of, n-lncli. liave hccom.e Surnames. The names of animals haA'O in all ages, and among nearly all nations, been applied as sobriquets to individuals, and these in modern times have ac- quired the force of surnames, and thus been handed down hereditarilj^ How…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom