Bouchard
A French surname that can mean “big mouth,” though some lines trace it to the old Germanic name Burchard.
The #2,739 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 23,472 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Bouchard is a French surname with more than one traditional explanation. One common derivation connects it with French bouche, “mouth,” plus an intensifying ending, giving a sense like “big mouth” or “large-mouthed.” Another old explanation links it to the Germanic personal name Burchard, built from elements meaning something like “fortified” or “hardy warrior.”
History
The name is well established in France and later spread into French-speaking and emigrant communities abroad. Historical surname writers often treated it as either a nickname based on appearance or speech, or as a shortened form of an older personal name, so both ideas have circulated for a long time. In North America it is most often encountered as a French-Canadian or broadly French surname.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
19th-century French onomastic writers even noted local dialect uses of bouchard for an ox with a black head.
From the historical record
“see Val let in Diet.] BOUCHARD (Fr.) BiG Mouth [Fr. bouche, mouth, Lat. bucca^ + the Fr. intens. suff. -arJ, O.Teut, Aarrf, hard] BOUTEILlER (Fr.) Cup-Bearer [see Butler in Diet.] BOUVIER"! (Fr.) Cattle-Drover, Ox-Herd BOYER \[L.\^3Lt.bovarius;l.l^aX.bos,bovis,”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)Notable people named Bouchard
- Eugenie Bouchard (b. 1994)
Sourced from Wikidata; linked to their Wikipedia page.