Barnard

Barnard is a surname.

Some of the Barnard family in England may have been Huguenots who fled from the Atlantic coast region of France circa 1685 (the time of the revocation of the edict of Nantes) or earlier than that date, however the evidence for this is tenuous, as the name does not appear in lists of proven Huguenot names. By contrast, the Barnard family in Holland (the western provinces of the Netherlands) can be definitively traced back to circa 1751 (Izaak Barnard) of Scheveningen. The countries from which they entered Holland prior to that date are uncertain. The Jewish branch of the Barnard family in England is well documented, and is thought to have arrived in England and Ireland, after the time of the readmission of Jews by Oliver Cromwell (1656); some of whom can be traced back to Rabbi Daniel Barnard of Canterbury, with notable descendants around London,Chatham, Dartford,Kingston upon Hull,,Bournemouth,Ipswich, Norwich and in Australia.

The surname is most commonly found in Greater London and the South Eastern counties of England, and in California, Texas, Florida and New York in the United States of America. It is also found in Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia, and occasionally in Germany.

It is an English or Dutch version of Bernard, from the Germanic name Bernhard, composed of the elements ber(n) ‘bear’ + hard ‘brave’, ‘hardy’, ‘strong’. The name is a held by Hebrew scholars to be a symbolic representation (or Kinnui) for the Israelite tribe of Issachar. One of the sons of Jacob, Issachar, was compared to a donkey, so one would expect to find the donkey as a Kinnui of Issachar. However, the donkey, not considered to be very auspicious, was replaced by a bear; Dov in Hebrew, Bär or Baer in German. The corresponding family names are BAER, BER, BERR, BEHR, BERNHARDT, BERNARD (in France), Anglicised and also found in Holland as BARNARD.

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