Barr Family History

Scottish and northern Irish: habitational name from any of various places in southwestern Scotland, in particular Ayrshire and Renfrewshire, named with Gaelic barr ‘height’, ‘hill’ or a British cognate of this. English: topographic name for someone who lived by a gateway or barrier, from Middle English, Old French barre ‘bar’, ‘obstruction’. English (of Norman origin): habitational name from any of various places in northern France called Barre. See Barre. English: habitational name from any of various places in England called Barr, for example Great Barr in the West Midlands, named with the Celtic element barro ‘height’, ‘hill’. English: from the vocabulary word barr ‘bar’, ‘pole’, either a metonymic occupational name for a maker of bars, or perhaps a nickname for a tall, thin man. Irish: from Ó Bairr, Donegal form of Ó Báire (see Barry 2).

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press