Family name origins & meanings
- German : from Middle Low German banse ‘granary’, ‘(wood or coal) shed next to a barn’ hence a topographic name for someone who owned or lived by such a building. In some instances a nickname for a fat person, from dialect Pansen ‘belly’, or in Bavaria a metonymic occupational name for a barrel maker from Banz, Banse ‘barrel’.
- French : from a Germanic personal name, short form of any of various names beginning with the element bant ‘bond’, ‘tie’.