Family name origins & meanings
- French : from the personal name Bernier, from a Germanic personal name composed of the elements bern ‘bear’ + hari ‘army’.
- German (from Slavic) : habitational name from a place so named in Mecklenburg.
- A Bernier from Paris, also called Jean de Paris, is recorded in Quebec city in 1656. Another, from the Poitou region of France, was documented in Quebec city in 1670, with the secondary surname La Marzelle.