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]
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 Englishbān 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 Norsebeinn 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]
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.
William Baines (1899–1922), English pianist and composer
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).
This page lists people with the surnameBaines. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.
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