The letter B carries some of the most common surnames in the country. Brown alone ranks fourth among all U.S. surnames in the Census Bureau’s published surname file, which lists 162,253 names reported at least 100 times and covers roughly 90 percent of the people it counted (1).
Below are 210 surnames starting with B, sorted into international picks, familiar favorites, and rarer finds. Each entry gives the origin and what the name first meant, whether that was a job, a place, or an ancestor.
In an 1857 study of family names, genealogist William Arthur wrote: “names have been taken and bestowed from every imaginable incident and occurrence unknown to us, and that many of them have been so corrupted in process of time, that we can not trace their originals. All names must have been originally significant.”
Plenty of them work as first names too. Bennett, Beau, and Brooks were the only three names here inside the U.S. top 100 for babies in 2025 (2).
Popularity at a Glance
The most popular names on this list in the United States, 1965 to 2025: Bennett, Beau, Brooks, Blair and Barrett.
70 Foreign Last Names That Start With B
These 70 surnames come from Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Portugal, and further afield, and most of them still describe where a family lived or what it did for a living.
- Babcock – English, from son of Bab, a medieval pet form of Barbara or Bartholomew. The double b gives it a bouncy sound that suits a character name.
- Baca – Common across the Balkans, where it often went to the oldest brother or to that brother’s son. In some regions it also traveled as a placename before it settled as a surname. Either way, it kept its short, sturdy shape.
- Baccaros – An Italian occupational surname for cowherders and ranch hands, uncommon enough that it does not show up in U.S. birth-name data at all.
- Badillo – Spanish for small ford. Families who lived beside a shallow river crossing carried it, which pins the name to a spot on the map.
- Baez – A Hispanic patronymic meaning son of Pelayo, a name traced back to the Greek word for sea.
- Balderas – A Spanish habitational name for a family from Valderas in the province of Leon. The V softened to a B somewhere along the way, a common enough shift in Spanish surnames.
- Balderrama – A variation of Valderrama, tied to the valley of the Rama river in Spain. The rolling double r is most of the appeal.
- Baltazar – From Balthazar, one of the Three Wise Men in biblical lore, with a meaning along the lines of Baal protects the King. It also works as a first name and ranked #2,802 in the U.S. in 2025.
- Banuelos – Spanish, from banos for baths, which points to a settlement near thermal waters.
- Barahona – Marks a family originally from Barahona, a district in Segovia, Spain, the kind of name that simply tells you where the family once lived.
- Barajas – A Spanish surname read either as watering hole or as fenced place, depending on the source you follow.
- Barboza – A spelling variant of Barbosa, Portuguese for someone who lived where the vegetation grew thick. The switch from S to Z is a common regional respelling. Both versions still turn up across Brazil and Portugal today.
- Barcia – Galician for cultivated land close to a river, so it named the ground before it named the family.
- Barrera – Spanish for barrier. It went to families living by the village gate or the fence line.
- Barrientos – A Spanish habitational name built on barro, meaning clay or mud. It likely marked a family from muddy or clay-rich ground.
- Barrios – For someone from an outlying suburb or a particular district of a town. Short, familiar, and easy to pair with almost any first name.
- Barros – Portuguese and Spanish for clay or loam, a name that came straight off the soil.
- Batista – A Spanish and Portuguese surname honoring John the Baptist. It shares its root with Baptiste, another name on this list.
- Battaglia – Italian for battle, most likely a nickname for a fighter or a hot-tempered neighbor. It lands with some force, true to the meaning.
- Bautista – The Spanish equivalent of Baptist, also honoring the biblical figure. As a U.S. first name it is barely used, last charting at #12,575 in 2024.
- Bazan – Spanish, either from the word for pheasant or from the Baztan valley.
- Beau – A French surname meaning handsome or fair. It is also one of only three names here inside the U.S. top 100 for babies, at #60 in 2025, its best showing on record.
- Beauchamp – French for beautiful field, a habitational name for families living near good meadows.
- Beebe – An English habitational name meaning bee settlement or bee farm. It had a modest run as a first name that ended in 1962.
- Beil – German, for a maker of axes or, less cheerfully, an executioner.
- Bello – Found in both Italy and Spain, and it simply means handsome or beautiful, a straightforward compliment turned into a family name.
- Beltran – The Spanish form of Bertram, built from elements meaning bright and raven.
- Benitez – A Spanish patronymic meaning son of Benito, which traces back to Benedict. Benedict itself comes from the Latin for blessed.
- Benoit – A common French surname meaning blessed. It still turns up as a U.S. first name, at #6,500 in 2025, well below its 1922 peak of #2,254.
- Bermudez – Means son of Bermudo, a Visigothic personal name carrying the element for bear.
- Bernardo – Portuguese and Spanish for brave as a bear. As a first name it ranked #1,347 in the U.S. in 2025, down from a 1994 peak of #672.
- Betz – A German short form of Bernhard or Berthold, clipped down to a single syllable. Short forms like this were common in medieval Germany, where long compound names got worn down through daily use. What’s left is barely more than a sound.
- Bey – A title of respect in Turkish, and separately a North German variant of Beye.
- Bianchi – An Italian descriptive name for someone with white hair or a pale complexion. It is the Italian cousin of the French Blanc and the Spanish Blanco.
- Biano – Likely a shortening of Fabiano, a Latin surname associated with bean growers.
- Bischoff – German for bishop, used as a nickname or for someone who worked in a bishop’s household. It shares a root with the English surname Bishop.
- Blanchett – A French derivative that described someone notably pale or fair-haired.
- Blanco – Spanish for white, usually a nickname for a blonde or pale person. It is one of the most common color-based surnames in the Spanish-speaking world. Bianchi and Blanc carry the same meaning in Italian and French.
- Bledsoe – An English name read as Blida’s hill or as a reference to one particular mound.
- Bocanegra – A Spanish surname meaning black mouth, which may have started as a jab at someone with a foul vocabulary. It’s a blunt insult that stuck for generations.
- Boehm – A German name for a person from Bohemia.
- Bolanos – A Spanish habitational name from places named with bola, a stone ball. Several small towns in Spain and Latin America still carry the name.
- Bolduc – A shortened French form of Bois-le-Duc, a town in the Netherlands.
- Boles – A variant of Bowles, either an Irish surname or an English occupational name. The Irish version traces to a personal name, while the English one points to a maker of wooden bowls. Two very different roots landed on the same handful of letters.
- Bonilla – A Spanish habitational name for a family from Bonilla in Cuenca or Albacete.
- Bono – Italian for good, from the Latin Bonus. Short, warm, and spelled the same way in most languages.
- Borja – A Spanish surname pointing to a town in Zaragoza, and the family name of Pope Alexander VI. It first reached U.S. baby-name data in 2016 and ranked #9,037 in 2025.
- Borrego – Spanish and Portuguese for lamb, used as a nickname for a gentle person. Animal nicknames like this were common shorthand for temperament in medieval Iberia.
- Bostick – An English habitational name from Bostock in Cheshire.
- Boucher – A French occupational name for a butcher, one of the plainest job titles on this list. English absorbed the same French root into its own word butcher.
- Boudreaux – A Cajun staple drawn from the Germanic name Baldher.
- Bourgeois – French for a freeman of a fortified town, a word that later came to mean the middle class. The shift happened as medieval townspeople gained legal standing separate from peasants and nobles. Centuries later, the word took on its modern political meaning.
- Bracco – Italian for hound, so it likely marked a hunter or a man with a hunter’s temperament.
- Bravo – A Spanish and Italian surname meaning brave, wild, or fierce. It’s also the word both languages still use as an exclamation of approval.
- Brito – A Portuguese name for someone from Brito in Guimaraes.
- Brittain – A regional name for a family out of Brittany, France. English spelling gradually reshaped the French Bretagne into something easier to say.
- Bronson – An English patronymic meaning son of Brown. It carries over neatly as a first name and ranked #1,046 in the U.S. in 2025.
- Broome – A topographical name for a family that lived near broom shrubs.
- Broussard – French for brush maker, or a nickname for a man with unruly hair. The name traveled to Louisiana with French settlers and is still common among Cajun families today. Both meanings, the trade and the hair, likely reinforced each other over time.
- Bruno – From the Germanic element brun, meaning brown or polished. It has been in U.S. baby-name data since 1880 and ranked #740 in 2025.
- Buchanan – A Scottish clan name meaning house of the canon. Its best year as a U.S. first name is the most recent one, #6,514 in 2025.
- Buell – A habitational name from Buhl in Germany, where the root means hill.
- Bueno – Spanish for good, handed to someone known for being kind. It’s about as straightforward a compliment as a surname gets.
- Buenrostro – A Spanish nickname meaning good face, likely for someone handsome or cheerful.
- Bui – A Chinese surname (often Vietnamese) meaning plum. In Vietnam it is usually spelled Bui with a tone mark English drops.
- Burdette – A French diminutive of names tied to shield or protection.
- Burgos – A habitational name for a family from the city of Burgos, Spain. The city gave its name to the surrounding province as well.
- Bushee – An Anglicized form of the French Boucher or of a name that sounded close to it.
- Bustamante – A habitational name from Bustamante in the Cantabria region of Spain. Four syllables, and it uses every one of them.
- Bustos – Spanish for pastures or grazing grounds. It likely marked a family who farmed or grazed animals on open land.
70 Popular Last Names Starting With B
You almost certainly know someone carrying one of these. They are the B surnames that fill class rosters, ballots, and the backs of jerseys.
- Bailey – An occupational name for a bailiff or steward. It has crossed over to first-name use completely, ranking #209 in the U.S. in 2025 after peaking at #60 in 1998.
- Baker – The English occupational classic for someone who baked bread or bricks. It is the fastest riser on this list as a first name, up about 1,179 percent measuring the last decade of births against the ten years before, and it reached its best rank yet at #217 in 2025.
- Ballou – Probably French in origin, possibly a nickname for someone distraught.
- Banks – Topographical, for a family on the slope of a hill or a riverbank. As a first name it stands at its high point, #310 in 2025.
- Bard – An occupational name for a singer, poet, or minstrel. Bards held real social standing in Celtic society, not just an entertainer’s role.
- Barnes – For someone living near a barn, or a habitational name from a place called Barnes.
- Barney – A diminutive of Barnaby or Bernard that settled in as a surname. Its run as a first name peaked back in 1914 at #288.
- Baron – A status name for an actual baron, or a nickname for a man who behaved like one. It ranked #1,370 as a U.S. first name in 2025.
- Bateman – An occupational name for a boatman, or for the servant of a man named Bartholomew. The two origins sound alike but come from completely different roots. Only the family’s own records can say which one applies.
- Bates – A patronymic meaning son of Bate, Bate being a short form of Bartholomew.
- Bauer – A German name meaning peasant or farmer, and about as plain-spoken as an occupational surname gets. It has held a steady rank in the 2,000s as a U.S. first name, most recently 2486th in 2025.
- Baum – German for tree, taken by families who lived beside a prominent one.
- Bay – Either a nickname for someone with reddish-brown hair or a topographical name. The color sense comes from the Old French bai, the same root behind a bay horse.
- Beck – A topographical name for a family living near a stream, which is what a beck is. It hit its best first-name rank yet in 2025 at #913.
- Becker – The German occupational name for a baker.
- Beer – The Old English bearu, meaning a grove or wood, gave this surname its shape, and it has nothing to do with the drink. Families who lived near a patch of woodland picked it up as a locator name. The spelling just happens to match a very different English word.
- Bell – Occupational for a bell ringer, or for a family that lived by the town bell.
- Bellamy – From the French bel ami, meaning fair friend. It ranked #797 as a U.S. first name in 2025.
- Bennett – The medieval English form of Benedict, meaning blessed. It is the highest ranked name on this list as a U.S. first name, #40 in 2025, which is also its best year on record.
- Bentley – A habitational name meaning bent grass clearing. It ranked #215 in 2025, down from a 2011 peak of #75.
- Bentz – A German short form of Berthold or Benedict. Like Betz, it shows how far a long Germanic name can get worn down.
- Bernier – French for bear army, which pointed at a warrior.
- Bevins – A Welsh surname meaning son of Evan. Evan itself is the Welsh form of John.
- Bingham – A habitational name from places in Nottinghamshire meaning homestead.
- Bixler – An occupational name for a pickaxe maker, and a genuinely uncommon one. Most surnames tied to tools describe the user, not the maker of the tool itself. That makes Bixler a rarer kind of occupational name.
- Black – A descriptive name for someone with dark hair or a swarthy complexion.
- Blackwell – A habitational name for a family living near a dark stream or pool. The dark, or black, likely referred to peat-stained water rather than anything sinister.
- Blake – Old English hands this one two opposite meanings, dark and pale. It ranked #316 as a first name in 2025 after peaking at #71 in 2012.
- Blanchard – Derived from the Germanic blank, meaning white or shining.
- Blanke – A variation of Blank, referring to a fair-skinned person. It’s a German cousin of the same white or pale naming pattern seen in Blanco and Bianchi.
- Blankenship – A habitational name from Blenkinsopp in Northumberland.
- Bloom – An occupational name for an iron worker, from the bloom of iron, and also a Jewish ornamental name. The two origins have nothing to do with each other beyond sharing a spelling. Ornamental Jewish surnames like this were often chosen for their pleasant sound rather than any occupation or place.
- Blunt – Descriptive, for blonde hair or for a blunt manner, take your pick.
- Bode – German and Dutch for messenger. Its best first-name year is the latest one, #748 in 2025.
- Bohannon – An Anglicized Irish name meaning victorious. The original Irish form got reshaped for English spelling over generations.
- Bolte – A German name for a bold man, or for a short, stout one.
- Booker – Occupational, for a binder of books or a scribe. It is the biggest comeback on this list: it bottomed out in 1998 and has recovered about fifteenfold since, landing at #1,160 in 2025.
- Boss – From a nickname based on the Middle English boce, meaning a hump or swelling. It has nothing to do with the modern word for a person in charge.
- Boswell – A Norman habitational name from Beuzeville in France.
- Bourne – The word bourne is Old English for a stream or a spring, and families settled near one picked up the name as a locator. It shows up across England in places still called Bourne or Bournemouth.
- Bowers – For someone who lived in a small cottage, or bower.
- Boyd – A Scottish name from the Gaelic buidhe, meaning yellow or blond. It has appeared in U.S. baby-name data since 1880.
- Bradford – A habitational name meaning broad ford. Bradford in Yorkshire, England, is the best known place carrying the name today.
- Bradley – Broad wood, or broad clearing. It ranked #403 as a first name in 2025, a long way from its 1970 peak of #47.
- Brady – An Irish surname meaning spirited or broad, and still a strong first name at #321 in 2025.
- Braggs – A nickname for a cheerful or lively person. The word bragg once described boastful high spirits rather than outright arrogance.
- Brandon – A habitational name for a hill covered with broom. It is the steepest faller on this list, down about 69 percent against the previous decade, though it still ranked #261 in 2025.
- Brennan – An Irish name from braon, meaning a drop as in sorrow, or from bran, meaning raven.
- Brenner – An occupational name for a burner of lime, charcoal, or bricks. It’s the German cousin of the English surname Burner.
- Bridges – Topographical, for a family living near a bridge or in charge of one.
- Briggs – A Northern English variant of Bridge. It sat at #356 as a first name in 2025, just off its best rank of #327 the year before.
- Bright – A descriptive name for a cheerful or bright-natured person. It described temperament long before it described complexion or hair color.
- Bristowe – A habitational name from Bristol, carrying an older spelling.
- Brooks – A very common name for anyone who lived near a brook. It is also one of three names here inside the U.S. top 100 for babies, at #64 in 2025.
- Brothers – Often referred to a member of a guild or a lay brother in a monastery, a name rooted in religious community life rather than a trade or a place.
- Brown – One of the most common English surnames, referring to hair or skin color. Brown ranks fourth among all U.S. surnames, yet as a first name it sits far down the list at #7,764.
- Browne – The same name as Brown, carrying an extra e.
- Bruce – A Scottish name of Norman origin, possibly from Brix in France. It was a U.S. top 25 first name in 1952 and ranked #536 in 2025.
- Bryan – From the Breton personal name Brian, meaning hill or high. It crossed into England and Ireland with Breton and Norman settlers. Centuries later it split into both a first name and a surname.
- Bryant – A variation of Bryan that picked up an excrescent t somewhere along the way.
- Buffington – A habitational name, probably meaning settlement of the people of Buffa. Buffa itself was likely a personal nickname before it ever named a place.
- Burd – A variant of Bird, or from the Old English word for a young lady.
- Burns – A burn is the Scots word for a small stream, and families settled beside one carried the name south with them.
- Burris – A variant of Burroughs, for someone living near a hill or a fort.
- Busch – German for bush or thicket. It’s the direct German ancestor of the English surname Bush.
- Butler – An occupational name for the head servant in charge of the wine cellar.
- Butterfield – Butter here likely points to rich, fertile grassland rather than the dairy product itself. A family working that kind of pasture picked up the field as a namesake.
- Buxton – A habitational name from Buxton in Derbyshire.
- Byers – It comes from byre, an old word for a cattle shed, and named someone who lived or worked near one. The word still survives in parts of rural Britain today.
- Bynum – A variant of Binham, another habitational name.
70 Unique Surnames Starting With B
These sit further off the beaten path, either because the spelling never got smoothed out or because the family stayed put in one small place.
- Bacon – Occupational for a pork butcher or swineherd, or a nickname from the Germanic bach, meaning fight. Two very different trades, in other words, landed on the same surname. English speakers today only ever hear the pork version.
- Baldwin – Derived from Germanic elements meaning bold friend.
- Ball – Ball here comes from an old word for a rounded hill, not the toy. A family settled at its base would carry the shape of the land as their name.
- Ballard – A nickname for a bald-headed man, and not an especially kind one.
- Baptiste – Derived from the Greek baptist, meaning to dip or to baptize. It shares its root with Batista, another name on this list.
- Barker – An occupational name for a leather tanner, who worked with oak bark.
- Barlow – A habitational name meaning barley hill. It named a family from any of several English villages called Barlow. The crop and the landscape were often one and the same in a medieval place name.
- Barn – Topographical for a dweller by a barn, about as direct as a surname gets.
- Barrett – A nickname for a quarrelsome person, or for a trader. It reached its best first-name rank yet in 2025 at #171.
- Bartlett – A double diminutive of Bartholomew, shortened twice over. Each shortening chipped the name down until barely a syllable of the original remained recognizable.
- Barton – A habitational name meaning barley farm or demesne farm.
- Bass – A nickname from bas, for a short or stout person. It has no connection to the fish that shares its spelling.
- Battle – A habitational name from Battle in Sussex, the site of the Battle of Hastings.
- Baugh – A Welsh nickname from bach, meaning little. It described someone small in stature, or perhaps just the younger of two family members with the same first name. Either way, the meaning stuck long after the reason for it was forgotten.
- Baxter – Originally the feminine form of Baker, though it came to cover bakers generally.
- Beach – The name splits between two old roots, one pointing to a stream, the other to a beech tree. Either way, it marked a family by whatever landmark stood closest to home.
- Bean – Occupational for a grower or seller of beans, or a nickname for a pleasant person.
- Beard – A nickname for a man with a beard worth remarking on. In an age before razors were common, a notable beard was memorable enough to become a name.
- Beasley – A habitational name meaning bent grass clearing. It is the rarest charted name on this list as a first name, #15,300 in 2025, or about one in 333,333 births.
- Benedict – Latin for blessed. It ranked #814 as a U.S. first name in 2025.
- Bernstein – A German and Jewish name meaning amber.
- Berry – It comes from bury, an old word for a fortified manor house or stronghold, not the fruit. Towns across England still carry the same root in names like Canterbury and Shrewsbury. A family settled near one of these strongholds carried the word home as a surname.
- Berryman – An occupational name for a servant at the manor house.
- Best – An occupational name for a herdsman, from beast rather than from being the best, a spelling coincidence that misleads at first glance.
- Bethel – A habitational name for someone from a place called Bethel, meaning house of God.
- Biddle – A variant of Beadle, an official of a church or a court. A beadle handled minor enforcement, the kind of job that keeps a parish running smoothly.
- Bishop – Occupational, or else a nickname for someone with a bishop’s bearing.
- Blackmon – A variant of Blackman, meaning dark man. It likely described hair, complexion, or clothing rather than anything more. The spelling drifted from Blackman to Blackmon over generations of handwriting and record keeping.
- Blair – Scottish Gaelic for plain or field. It sits at its best first-name rank ever, #169 in 2025.
- Bland – A descriptive name for someone with a mild disposition or gray hair.
- Bliss – A nickname for a cheerful, joyful person, still charted today at rank 2219 in 2025, worn as plainly as its meaning suggests.
- Block – Occupational for a blocker, meaning a shoemaker, or for a woodworker.
- Blount – A variant of Blunt, meaning blonde or dull.
- Blue – A nickname for someone who wore blue or had blue eyes.
- Blum – A Jewish ornamental name meaning flower. Ornamental surnames like this were often adopted or assigned in the 18th and 19th centuries, when Jewish communities across Europe were required to take fixed surnames. Many families chose or received names built from pleasant, everyday words like this one.
- Bobo – A Spanish or Italian nickname, possibly for a stammerer.
- Bolden – A variant of Bolton, meaning a dwelling on a hill. The final syllable softened from ton to den somewhere along the way.
- Bolton – A habitational name meaning enclosure with a building.
- Bond – A status name for a peasant farmer or husbandman. In medieval England, a bond was someone tied to the land they worked, not yet the free tenant a yeoman would become.
- Bonner – A nickname from debonair, meaning gentle or courteous.
- Booth – It comes from bothy, an old word for a small hut or shelter, often a herder’s temporary quarters. A family living in one, even seasonally, could pick up the word as a surname. The same root survives in modern Scots and northern English dialect.
- Boston – A habitational name from the town of Boston in Lincolnshire. As a first name it has become more common than you might expect for a place name, sitting at #620 in the 2025 U.S. rankings.
- Bowie – A Scottish Gaelic nickname meaning yellow or fair-haired.
- Bowles – Occupational, for a maker of wooden bowls. It’s the root behind the variant surname Boles, also on this list.
- Bowman – An occupational name for an archer.
- Boyle – An Irish surname derived from a pledge. It comes from the Gaelic word for a vow or bond of loyalty.
- Brand – From the Germanic personal name meaning sword or fire.
- Branham – A habitational name meaning broom homestead. The broom here is the flowering shrub, not the household tool. A family living where broom grew thick carried the plant into their name.
- Breedlove – An unusual name of uncertain origin, possibly a compliment paid to an ancestor.
- Brewer – An occupational name for a brewer of beer. Its best year as a first name is 2025, at #804.
- Britt – A short form of Brett, referring to a Breton. It marked someone whose family came from Brittany, in northwestern France.
- Brock – A nickname for a badger, which implied tenacity.
- Brogan – An Irish name meaning little shoe, and by extension a maker of them. A brogan was a sturdy work shoe, the everyday footwear of the person the name likely described.
- Browning – A nickname for a person with dark hair or complexion.
- Brubaker – Topographical for a dweller by a bridge over a brook. It’s a German surname that made its way to America over the centuries. The spelling has drifted, but the bridge and the brook are still right there in the name.
- Buck – A nickname for a man likened to a male deer, agile or strong.
- Bull – A nickname for a man of great strength, or of great stubbornness. Take your pick of which trait made the name stick.
- Bullock – A nickname meaning young bull.
- Burch – A variant of Birch, for a family living near birch trees. The vowel shift from i to u is common in regional English dialects.
- Burger – A status name for a freeman or citizen of a borough.
- Burgess – A status name for a freeman or a town official. A burgess held real civic standing, often with voting rights in a medieval town. The word survives today in Burgess as both a surname and, occasionally, a first name.
- Burr – A nickname for the sort of person who is hard to shake off.
- Burrell – A name for someone who wore coarse brown woolen cloth.
- Burton – A habitational name meaning fortified farm.
- Busby – A habitational name meaning village in the thicket. The same word later came to describe a tall fur military hat, an entirely unrelated borrowing.
- Bush – Topographical, for a family living near a bush.
- Buss – A variant of Bush, or a nickname from the Old French busse, meaning cask. Two unrelated roots, a plant and a barrel, converged on the same short surname. Context and family record are the only way to know which one applies to a given Buss.
- Butcher – An occupational name for a butcher.
- Bynes – A spelling variant of Bines or Vines.
- Byrd – A variant of Bird, a nickname for a bird-like person.