Etymology — The Origins of English Words

Formed from "old" plus the plural "-s", echoing older phrases like "old folks".

From French belle ville, meaning "beautiful town".

From Old English words for "homestead" or "place," originally describing the settlement before it grew into a well-known London district.

Named after British colonial administrator and author Henry Hesketh Bell (1864–1952).

From Italian Gallipoli, from Turkish Gelibolu, ultimately from Greek words meaning roughly "beautiful city."

From the place name "Lowlands of Cochrane" in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland.

Borrowed straight from Spanish oso, meaning "bear."

A variant of the name Susan or Susannah, from Hebrew שׁוֹשַׁנָּה (“Shoshána”) meaning "rose" or "lily".

From Georgian შოთა (šota).

From Ancient Greek βροντή (brontḗ, "thunder").

From Old Norse Baldr.

From Sanskrit, related to a name for the god Krishna.

From Middle English fisscheman, equivalent to fish plus man.

Through immigration from Dutch Jansen. Doublet of Johnson.

From Old English mersc (“marsh”) + tūn (“enclosure, settlement”).

From "sweet" plus the informal suffix "-ums."

From "cock" plus "sucking," used as a crude intensifying adjective.

From Latin Annas (as used in the Vulgate), from Greek Hannas, from a Hebrew/Aramaic name meaning "gracious" or "merciful."

Coined by Tolkien in his invented Elvish language Quenya, from a root meaning "foul" or "putrid."

From Mordor, the dark, dangerous realm ruled by Sauron in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth stories. Tolkien built the name in his invented Sindarin language from words meaning "dark" and "land."

Borrowed from Hungarian Nagy.

From Old English full (“filled, fertile”) + mere (“lake”).

* As an English surname, from several placenames, such as the one in Gloucestershire, from the Old English personal name Beorn + -ing (“belonging to”) + tūn (“enclosure; settlement, town”). There is also the placename in Somerset of Norman origin, probably named after Barentin in Seine-Maritime, from Medieval Latin Barentinum, Barentini, of pre-Latin origin, perhaps of Celtic/Gaulish origin and identical with Barenton, both names from a Gaulish word related to water. * As an Irish surname, from Ó Bearáin (literally “descendant of Bearán”), see Barnes, Barron.

An anglicized form of the Irish surname Ó Fallamhain.