Family name origins & meanings
- English and Scottish : from Middle English bis, biss(e), bice, byse ‘dingy’, ‘dark’, ‘gray’, ‘murky’; ‘dark fur used for trimming and lining garments’ (Old French bis(e), of Germanic origin), hence a nickname for someone with an unhealthy complexion or someone who habitually dressed in particularly drab garments, or (from the noun) a metonymic occupational name for a furrier or maker of fur-trimmed garments.
- South German : nickname for a cutting, sarcastic person, from Biss ‘bite’.