Explore the Family Name Bunt

The meaning of Bunt

1. English: from an unrecorded Middle English bunt ‘something swollen’, related to modern English bunt ‘swelling, bag-like end of a net or sail’, and to Middle English bunting ‘small bird, corn bunting’. The name could have been a nickname given to a plump person. Derivation from Middle English bonte, bunte ‘sieve’ is formally also possible but less likely. 2. English: alternatively, from an unrecorded Middle English personal name Bunt(e), Old English Bunt(a), perhaps derived from the same sense as in 1 above. 3. Dutch (mainly Van de Bunt): habitational name for someone who lived at a place called after its vegetation, which consisted of bunt grass, i.e. a meadow with tufts of a tough kind of grass. 4. In some cases also German: from Middle High German bunt, a term which originally described black and white coloration, specifically of a fur. Later, by extension, it came to denote the fur itself. It was probably applied as a nickname, but in which sense is no longer clear, and the matter is further complicated by the fact that in some areas bunt meant ‘multicolored’ (its modern meaning is ‘colorful’). This surname is very rare in Germany.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.