Family name origins & meanings
- English : from Middle English bark ‘bark’ (Old Norse bǫrkr), hence a metonymic occupation name for a tanner. See also Barker.
- North German : topographic name for someone who lived by a birch tree or in a birch wood, from berke ‘birch’, or alternatively for someone who lived on a mountain (see Barg).
- Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic) : of uncertain origin, perhaps a variant of Barak.