Origin
Benoit : French (Benoît): from the personal name Benoît French form of Benedict. Compare Benoist Benoy Benware Benway and Ward.
Banet : 2: French: from a variant of the personal name Benet a regional form of Benoît (see Benoit).1: French: derivative of Bane ‘hamper large basket’.3: Jewish (from Poland): variant of Benet 2.
Benest : regional or scribal variant of Old French beneit benoit ‘blessed’ a word and name derived from Latin benedictus. Compare Bennett Benedict.perhaps sometimes from Benest (Charente-Maritime).
Benet : 1: Catalan: from the Catalan form of the Latin personal name Benedictus (see Benedict).2: Jewish (Ashkenazic and Sephardic): from the personal name Benet ultimately derived from the Latin Benedictus (compare 1 above) and used by Jews as a vernacular equivalent of Hebrew Baruch.3: English (Montgomeryshire): variant of Bennett.4: French (mainly southern): variant of Benoît (see Benoit). Compare Bennet 3 and Bennett 3.
Bennett : 1: English: from the medieval personal name Benedict from Latin Benedictus ‘blessed’. In the 12th century the Latin form of the name is found in England alongside versions derived from the Old French form Beneit Benoit which was common among the Normans. The surname has also been established in Ireland since the 14th century.2: German: from a short form of the personal name Bernhard.3: Altered form of French Benet or Bennet or Binet and possibly also of some other similar (like-sounding) French surname. Altered ending reflects the Canadian and American French practice of sounding the final -t. Compare Bennet 3.
Benoist : French: variant of Benoît (see Benoit) and in North America (also) an altered form of this.
Benoy : Altered form of French Benoît (see Benoit).
Benware : Americanized form of French Benoît (see Benoit).
Benway : Americanized form of French Benoît (see Benoit) reflecting the Canadian and American French pronunciation of the diphthong oî as ‘wé’ which in France was replaced in the 17th century by the current ‘wa’.
Ward : 1: English: occupational name for a watchman or guard from Middle English ward ‘watchman guard’ (Old English weard used as both an agent noun and an abstract noun).2: English: occupational name from Middle English warde ‘armed guard’ (Old English weard ‘watching guarding’) with the same meaning as 1 above.3: Irish: shortened form of McWard an Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac an Bhaird ‘son of the poet’. The surname occurs throughout Ireland where three different branches of the family are known as professional poets.4: Jewish (American): adoption of the English name (see above) in place of some similar (like-sounding) original Ashkenazic surname such as Warshawski or Warshawsky.5: Altered form of French Guérin (see Guerin) and Benoît (see Benoit).
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Source : DAFN2 : Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, ©2022 by Patrick Hanks and Oxford University Press
FANBI : The Oxford Dictionary if Family Names in Britain and Ireland, ©2016, University of the West of England
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