Where the Burns name comes from

Burns has several separate origins. One line came out of the Middle English and Scots word burn, a stream, as a topographic name for someone who lived beside one. Another is a worn form of Burnhouse, a place name made of burn and house, and shows up as Burnis in 1526. A third began as a nickname meaning burn house, written Brenhus in 1275 and again in 1286.

In Ireland, Burns is an Anglicised form of Ó Broin, descendant of Bran. The same Irish name became Byrne. In America some families shortened Bernstein to Burns, a name that comes from the German bernstein, amber.