Board
A surname usually understood as meaning someone who lived by a board, plank, or boundary, with some cases possibly influenced by sign-board names.
The #8,388 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 78,243 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The name is usually traced to Old French bord, a word used for a board, plank, or the edge or side of something, and in English surname use it could point to someone living at or near a boundary. Some 19th-century writers also connected it with a place-name or with sign-board names, especially because similar surnames often arose from inns or marked houses. The evidence suggests more than one possible source in different families, but the boundary/edge sense is the main traditional explanation.
History
Bardsley and Lower both treat Board alongside forms like Boord and Borde, and link it to the Old French word for a border or edge. In English records, similar names often became fixed as hereditary surnames in the Middle Ages, especially in areas where French-influenced vocabulary was used in local naming. Some bearers may instead descend from house or tavern signs, which Bardsley thought was common for a number of surnames.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Lower explicitly glossed the related Old French word as referring to a small detached house or cottage of timber in some French usage, showing how one surname could pick up several overlapping place-based meanings.
From the historical record
“Way, Plank-Bridge [Nor. Fr. planque (Ft. planche), with dim. suff. -et(te; Lat. planca, a board] 2 f.'the Lat. Planers = Flatfooted [with Fr. dim. suff. -et(te] There is a ia Planquette in the Eure Dept., Normandy.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)