Family name origins & meanings
- Respelling of French Boillard, a pejorative nickname for a corpulent individual, from a derivative of Latin botulus ‘guts’, ‘belly’. In Burgundy boille also denotes a large basket for collecting grapes and it is possible that in this area the name arose as a metonymic occupational name for someone who made or used such baskets.
- The surname Boilard is documented in L’Islet, Quebec, in 1680, having been brought there by an immigrant from the Poitou region of France. The secondary surname Beaurivage is recorded in 1730 in Quebec city.