Burney
A surname with several possible roots, including an English place-name origin and an Irish/Scottish Gaelic form related to MacBirney.
The #3,888 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 33,831 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The evidence in older surname dictionaries is mixed. One line of explanation treats Burney as a locational English surname, probably from a place such as Bernay or another similar name; another connects it with Gaelic MacBirney/McBurney forms. A further speculative strand in 19th-century scholarship links it to an old word for “bear,” via Norse and Anglo-Saxon personal names such as Bjorn or Birna. None of these derivations can be treated as certain on the excerpts alone, so the surname is best described as having multiple plausible origins.
History
The name appears in English records by the medieval period, especially in eastern and central England, and later turns up in literary and clerical contexts. In Irish sources, Burney is also found as an anglicized form of MacBirney/McBurney. The surname became widely familiar in Britain through notable bearers such as the novelist Fanny Burney.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The novelist Fanny Burney helped make the surname especially well known in the late 18th century.
From the historical record
“Browne. 2. A parish in Somersetshire. BURNEY. Probably the same as Ber- naj', which see. A Ralph de Bernai occurs in the Domesd. of Worcester and Here- ford. BURNHAM. Parishes In cos. Bucks, Essex, Somerset, Norfolk, &c. BURNINGHAM. Brlningliam, co. Nor- folk. BURNMAN. See Bourn and Man.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom