Barley Family History
Barley Name Meaning
English: habitational name from any of various places called Barley. Those in Lancashire and Yorkshire are named with Old English bār ‘wild boar’ or bere ‘barley’ + lēah ‘woodland clearing’. A place of the same name in Hertfordshire has as its first element an unattested Old English byname Be(o)ra (from bera ‘bear’). English: metonymic occupational name for a grower or seller of barley from Middle English barli barlich ‘barley’ (Old English bærlic originally an adjective derivative of bær ‘barley’ a byform of bere). Americanized form of South German Behrle or of its Swiss German cognates Beerli Berli or Berly and probably also of some other similar (like-sounding) surname. Compare Berley .
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022