Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from Bury in Lancashire (now part of Greater Manchester), or from some other similarly named place. The place name comes from the dative case, byrig, of Old English burh ‘fortified place’. Compare Burke, originally used after a preposition (e.g. Richard atte Bery).
- French : habitational name from places so named in Marne and Oise. The place name is from Buriacum, the name of a Gallo-Roman estate, composed of the personal name Burius + the locative suffix -acum.
- German : probably a variant spelling of Buri. According to Gottschald, however, it is from French Purry.
- Czech (Burý) : topographic name from bur ‘pine wood’.
- Czech (Burý) : descriptive nickname from burý ‘dark’.