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Updated June 9, 2019

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’.

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