Family name origins & meanings
- English : nickname for a hunchback, from Old French bossu ‘hunchbacked’ (a derivative of bosse ‘lump’, ‘hump’; compare Bossard 2).
- German : from a short form of the personal name Borkhardt, a variant of Burkhart.
- Possibly an altered spelling of South German Bös (see Bos).
- Danish : medieval variant of Buus, a surname of uncertain origin, perhaps from German būsemen ‘devil’, ‘ghost’.