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Last name origins & meanings:

  1. Scottish: nickname for a fair-haired person, from Gaelic bàn ‘white’, ‘fair’. This is a common name in the Highlands, first recorded in Perth in 1324.
  2. Northern English: nickname meaning ‘bone’, probably bestowed on an exceptionally tall, lean man, from Old English bān ‘bone’. In northern Middle English -ā- was preserved, whereas in southern dialects (which later became standard), it was changed to -ō-.
  3. Northern English: nickname for a hospitable person, from northern Middle English beyn, bayn ‘welcoming’, ‘friendly’ (Old Norse beinn ‘straight’, ‘direct’).
  4. English and French: metonymic occupational name for an attendant at a public bath house, from Middle English, Old French baine ‘bath’.
  5. French: topographic name for someone who lived by a Roman bath, from Old French baine ‘bath’ or a habitational name from a place in Ille-et-Vilaine, named with this word.
  6. Possibly an altered spelling of North German Behn.
  7. George Luke Scobie Bain (1836–91) was born in Stirling, Scotland. He ran away to sea and successively lived and worked in Portland, ME, Chicago, and St. Louis, where he was a miller and flour merchant and a very prominent citizen.