Baba Family History

Japanese: written 馬場 ‘horse-riding ground race track’. This is a common placename. This surname is found mostly in west central Japan. One Baba family in Kai (now Yamanashi prefecture) were samurai vassals of the Takeda family.

Muslim: from Arabic bābā a diminutive of abū ‘father’. Turkish: ornamental name nickname or status name from baba ‘father’ also ‘venerable man’. Hungarian (Bába): habitational name from any of several places called Bába in Abaúj Borsod Somogy and Vas counties of Hungary and Közép-Szolnok County now in Romania.

Albanian: nickname or status name from baba or babë (definite form baba) ‘father’ also ‘religious head of a Bektashi congregation’ a word of Turkish origin (see 3 above).

Czech Slovak Polish Hungarian Romanian and Sorbian: from the Slavic word baba ‘(old) woman grandmother’ figuratively (for a man) ‘coward’ hence an unflattering nickname for a man thought to resemble an old woman or for a coward. The Sorbian surname is found mainly in a Germanized form Babe. Compare Babik Babinec.

Spanish: nickname from baba ‘slime’. In some cases probably also an American shortened form of Armenian Babaian or Babayan.