Baines

Baines is a surname of English, Scottish or Welsh origin. It shares many of the same roots with the British surname Bains.[1][2] It shares some roots with the British surname Bain.[1]

Not to be confused with Bains.

Derivation and variants

Baines has a number of different sources, several of them nicknames and another based on an occupation. In Scotland and the north of England the Old English word bān ('bone') became Middle English bān and bain. It may have become a nickname in the plural, meaning 'bones' or '[long-]legs' (cf. modern German Bein, also meaning both "bone" and "leg").[1] The Middle English bayn, beyn and the Old Norse beinn meant 'straight' or 'direct', which may have become a nickname.[1] The Middle English bayne (and French bain) meant 'bath'. This may have become an occupational surname for an attendant at a public bath.[1]

Baines may also have Welsh roots, from the patronymic ab Einws ('son of Einws'). Einws is a shortened version of the Welsh name Ennion, meaning 'Anvil'.[2]

Variants of the surname Baines include Bains, Banes, Baynes and Bayns.[1][2]

Frequency of occurrence

At the time of the British Census of 1881, its relative frequency was highest in Rutland (31.2 times the British average), followed by Westmorland, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Leicestershire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Montgomeryshire and Bedfordshire.[3]

Hanks and Hodges suggest in their "A Dictionary of Surnames" that many present day Baines descend from Robert Baines of Ipswich, Suffolk, England (born c. 1587).[2] John Baines, Liverpool, England, Doctor of Physics.

Notable people with the surname Baines

(In alphabetical order)

Distribution

As a surname, Baines is the 1,732nd most common surname in Great Britain, with 6,209 bearers. It is most common in Lancashire, where it is the 626th most common surname, with 1,784 bearers. Other concentrations include, Swansea, (88th,1,704), City of Leeds, (167th,1,722), and West Yorkshire, (380th, 1,702).

See also

References
  1. Reaney, P.H. A Dictionary of British Surnames Routledge & Kegan Paul, 2nd edition (1976)
  2. Hanks, P. & Hodges, F. A Dictionary of Surnames Oxford University Press (1988)
  3. "Baines Surname Meaning and Distribution". forebears.co.uk. Retrieved 23 January 2014
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