Last name origins & meanings:
- English: status name for a peasant farmer or husbandman, Middle
English bonde (Old English bonda, bunda,
reinforced by Old Norse bóndi). The Old Norse word was also
in use as a personal name, and this has given rise to other English
and Scandinavian surnames alongside those originating as status
names. The status of the peasant farmer fluctuated considerably during
the Middle Ages; moreover, the underlying Germanic word is of disputed
origin and meaning. Among Germanic peoples who settled to an
agricultural life, the term came to signify a farmer holding lands
from, and bound by loyalty to, a lord; from this developed the sense
of a free landholder as opposed to a serf. In England after the Norman
Conquest the word sank in status and became associated with the notion
of bound servitude.
- Swedish: variant of Bonde.
This name appears in the following lists:
Literary Characters
| 
Pregnancy
Save Name
E-mail
Print
