Bond surname meaning

Bond is an English occupational and status surname from Middle English bond, related to Old English and Old Norse words for a farmer, husbandman, or customary tenant. A bond was tied to land or a lord’s estate in a way that contrasted with a free tenant, so the medieval social and agricultural meanings overlap. Bonde, Bondi, and Bunde are useful continental or historical comparisons. The surname does not point to the modern meaning of an agreement, nor does it identify one particular farm. The catalog uses occupation with high confidence because the medieval livelihood and tenant-status term is the direct surname source.