Family name origins & meanings
- English : metonymic occupational name for a cooper or else a nickname for a rotund, fat man, from Middle English, Old French busse ‘cask’, ‘barrel’ (of unknown origin). The word was also used in Middle English for a type of ship, and the surname may perhaps have been given to someone who sailed in one. The byname seems to occur already in Domesday Book, where a Siward Buss, and a John and Richard Buss are recorded at Brasted in Kent.
- German and Swiss German : from a pet form of the personal name Burkhard (see Burkhart).
- Danish : variant of Buus.