Byrd surname meaning

Byrd is chiefly an English and Irish spelling variant of Bird. The underlying word was available as a nickname for someone thought birdlike, associated with a particular bird, or simply known by a local byname. Some references also allow an occupational connection with a bird-catcher, but that is not necessary to explain the surname. Bird, Berd, Birt, and Byrd show the spelling choices that became fixed in different records. Nickname is the high-confidence catalog type because the Bird variant is consistently supported. It still does not identify which bird, description, or locality may have started a particular family’s line.