Family name origins & meanings
- English : either a descriptive nickname for someone with bushy or otherwise distinctive eyebrows, from Middle English browe ‘eyebrow’, ‘eyelid’ (Old English brū), but, more likely, a topographic name for someone who lived at the brow of a hill from a transferred use of the same word; surnames of the type de la Browe are recorded from the end of the 13th century.
- Americanized spelling of French Braud.
- Americanized spelling of Dutch Brouw, an occupational name for a brewer, from a derivative of Middle High Dutch brouwen ‘to brew’.