Black Family History

Scottish and English: from Middle English blak(e) ‘black’ (Old English blæc, blaca), a nickname given from the earliest times to a swarthy or dark-haired man. Scottish and English: from Old English blac ‘pale’, ‘fair’, i.e. precisely the opposite meaning to 1, and a variant of Blake 2. Blake and Black are found more or less interchangeably in several surnames and place names. English: variant of Blanc as a Norman name. The pronunciation of the nasalized vowel gave considerable difficulty to English speakers, and its quality was often ignored. Scottish and Irish: translation of various names from Gaelic dubh ‘black’ (see Duff). Danish and Swedish: generally, probably the English and Scottish name, but in some cases perhaps a variant spelling of Blak, a nickname from blak ‘black’. In some cases, a translation of various names meaning ‘black’, for example German and Jewish Schwarz.

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