Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from a place so called; there is one in Cambridgeshire and another in Northamptonshire, both named with Old English beorn ‘warrior’ (genitive plural beorna) or the Old English personal name Beorna + well(a) ‘stream’.
- A John Barnwell (c.1671–1724) emigrated to SC from Ireland at the end of the 17th century.