Fun Facts About the Name Burris
- 162 babies named Burris: U.S. records list 162 babies given the name Burris from 1880 through 2025.
What Does the Name Burris Mean?
Burris is an English surname used as a given name. Its usual explanation is that it comes from the Old English word burh (also written burg), meaning "fortress" or "stronghold." In that reading the name belongs with English surnames such as Burrows, Burroughs, and Bury, which point to a fortified place. The final syllable is generally taken to be a possessive or diminutive ending added to that root, though the exact formation is not firmly settled. Because the name began as a surname rather than a vocabulary word, its meaning is really the sense of the feature it described: a fort, a fortified manor, or a hill-fort.
A second and much less certain explanation treats the name as a patronymic - a "son of" surname built on a personal name - but no single ancestor name is agreed on, so that derivation cannot be confirmed. The core sense of "fort" or "stronghold" is the one most consistently given.
Burris Name History & Origins
Burris is a hereditary surname that took shape in England, where family names became fixed between roughly the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. It belongs to the large group of topographic surnames, formed from a feature of the landscape or a settlement rather than from an ancestor's name or a trade. Old English burh, "fortress," survives in many English place names and in surnames drawn from them, and a person who lived at or near such a fortification could be identified by it.
Spelling was fluid before standard dictionaries and parish registers settled on fixed forms. The same name appears in different records as Burris, Burres, Burrows, and Burroughs, and families sharing these spellings are not necessarily related. The name is found in England and Scotland, and it also appears in Ireland, where English surnames were widely adopted by Gaelic families, especially from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries onward.
Its use as a first name is a later development, following the general habit of using surnames as given names, and it has remained uncommon.
How Popular is the Name Burris?
Burris has historically been an exceptionally rare given name in the United States, remaining well outside the national mainstream. It saw its highest recorded annual births in 1922. Its best rank was #1,407 in 1911.
U.S. name popularity from 1880-2025, based on SSA data. Rank shows how the name compares with other names - lower numbers mean greater popularity. Births shows how many babies received the name each year.
| Year | Rank | Births | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1946 | #2,947 | 7 | 0.0004% |
| 1938 | #3,586 | 5 | 0.0005% |
| 1933 | #2,775 | 8 | 0.0008% |
| 1931 | #3,130 | 7 | 0.0007% |
| 1929 | #3,275 | 7 | 0.0007% |
| 1928 | #3,399 | 7 | 0.0006% |
| 1927 | #3,497 | 7 | 0.0006% |
| 1926 | #3,434 | 7 | 0.0006% |
| 1924 | #3,050 | 9 | 0.0008% |
| 1923 | #2,641 | 11 | 0.0010% |
| 1922 | #2,257 | 14 | 0.0013% |
| 1921 | #2,395 | 13 | 0.0012% |
| 1920 | #2,989 | 9 | 0.0008% |
| 1919 | #4,237 | 5 | 0.0005% |
| 1918 | #2,717 | 10 | 0.0010% |
| 1917 | #2,763 | 9 | 0.0010% |
| 1915 | #2,657 | 9 | 0.0011% |
| 1914 | #3,321 | 5 | 0.0008% |
| 1912 | #2,318 | 6 | 0.0014% |
| 1911 | #1,407 | 7 | 0.0031% |
Name popularity over more than a century, based on Social Security Administration data. Gaps in the chart indicate years when the name does not appear in the published records.
Most Popular Boy Names That Start with B
How the Name Burris Shapes Your Personality and Life?
You can go to great heights and equally great depths. You are emotional and fixed in your opinions. You are hospitable, sentimental, often psychic, sometimes moody. You are ruled by love and the lack of it and feel a need to be encouraged and appreciated. Emergencies may raise your intuitive abilities in order to resolve conflict or situation. You become very creative under the pressure, and have quite original ideas to make the best out of it.
You find the best contentment in life when you own your own home and provide well for your family and loved ones. You have a great sense of responsibility and duty. You are comforting, appreciative and affectionate. Your obligation in life is to hold justice and truth, and if you follow the Law, you can find the great happiness and satisfaction.
✦ Burris's Deeper Meaning & Tips for Parents Discover Burris's symbolic numbers and practical tips for choosing a name that complements your child's birth date.