“A! Fredome is a noble thing!” — the opening cry of The Brus, the epic poem that made its author, Archdeacon John Barbour, the first great named voice of Scots literature. Barbour is not a name from a battle standard or a clan seal, though; it is an occupational surname, taken from the trade of the barber, and it has produced a strikingly varied cast of historical figures, from a medieval Aberdeen churchman to American governors and the founder of one of Britain’s best-known outdoor clothing firms.
Quick answer: Barbour is a Scottish occupational surname meaning “barber,” documented from the early 1300s. Its most famous bearer, John Barbour (c. 1320–1395), Archdeacon of Aberdeen, wrote The Brus, the foundational epic of Robert the Bruce’s struggle for independence and one of the earliest major literary works composed in Scots. The name later crossed the Atlantic to found a prominent Virginia political dynasty, and, separately, a Galloway-born John Barbour founded the outdoor-clothing company J. Barbour & Sons in 1894.
An Occupational Name From the Barber’s Trade
In medieval Scotland, as across Europe, the barber was not just a hair-cutter. Barbers of the period typically also practised minor surgery, tooth-pulling, and bloodletting — the trade later formalised, in some towns, into barber-surgeon guilds. “Barbour” simply named a man in that trade, and the surname was already well established in Scotland by the early 14th century. According to ElectricScotland’s history of the name, King Robert the Bruce granted charter lands of Craigie, in Forfarshire, to a Robert Barbour in 1309; by 1328 a John Barbour was receiving payment orders directly from the crown; and an Andrew Barbour held property on Aberdeen’s Castle Street around 1350 — quite possibly the father of the poet discussed below.
John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen and Father of Scots Poetry
The name’s most significant historical bearer is John Barbour (born around 1320, died 13 March 1395), whose birthplace is uncertain but is usually placed in or near Aberdeen. He was appointed Archdeacon of Aberdeen by King David II in 1356 and held the post until his death, while also securing royal safe-conducts to study at Oxford in 1357 and 1364 and to travel in France in 1368. His major surviving work, The Brus (also known as The Bruce), was completed around 1375 during the reign of Robert II, whose household Barbour served. The poem is a historical verse epic tracing Robert the Bruce and Sir James Douglas through Scotland’s wars of independence, and Barbour is widely regarded as the first major named literary figure to write in the Scots language — a distinction that puts him in the same historical bracket as Chaucer for English literature. Robert II rewarded him well: records show a payment of ten pounds Scots in 1377 and a life pension granted in 1378. Barbour is said to have written several other long works, but only The Brus survives complete; titles such as The Stewartis Oryginalle and The Brut are lost, and scholars still debate whether he also wrote the Buik of Alexander.
From Forfarshire to Virginia: An American Political Dynasty
Centuries later, a different branch of the family carried the Barbour name across the Atlantic. According to Wikipedia’s account of the Barbour family, a James Barbour emigrated from Scotland to Virginia in the mid-17th century, founding an American political dynasty. His descendants included James Barbour, who served as Governor of Virginia, a United States Senator, and Secretary of War; Philip P. Barbour, a member of Congress, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and later an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; and John Strode Barbour Sr. and Jr., both of whom also served in Congress. It is a reminder of how far a single Scottish trade-name could travel and how differently it could flourish once transplanted.
Galloway to South Shields: The Name Behind the Waxed Jacket
A separate and much later Barbour made his own mark on a very different field. John Barbour, born in Galloway, in southwest Scotland, founded J. Barbour and Sons Ltd in South Shields, in the north of England, in 1894, initially as an importer of oil-cloth. The firm quickly turned to producing weatherproof clothing for the local seafaring community, who faced harsh North Sea conditions, and during the Second World War it manufactured specialist waterproof military garments, including gear for submarine crews. Under John’s grandson, Duncan Barbour, the company became famous for pioneering waxed-cotton motorcycle suits that were adopted by racers on the circuit — work that helped make Barbour a recognised name in outdoor clothing well beyond Scotland.
An Edinburgh Barbour: Medicine and Heritage Restoration
Not every notable Barbour left Scotland. Alexander Hugh Freeland Barbour (1856–1927) was born and lived his entire career in Edinburgh, becoming a leading Scottish gynaecologist. He earned his MD from the University of Edinburgh in 1884, winning a gold medal for his thesis on spinal deformity in obstetrics, and later co-authored the widely used Manual of Gynaecology as well as The Anatomy of Labour (1889). He served as President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh from 1914 to 1916. Away from medicine, Barbour co-founded the Edinburgh Social Union, a body that restored historic housing in the Old Town, including Chessels Court and White Horse Close — work that helped preserve parts of Edinburgh’s built heritage that still stand today. His son, George Brown Barbour, went on to become a noted geologist, continuing the family’s record of academic achievement into a third field entirely.
How the Barbour Name Spread
Ancestry.com’s population records show the Barbour surname established in the USA, the UK, Canada, and Scotland between 1840 and 1920, with roughly 425,000 historical records — including about 123,000 birth, marriage, and death documents, 70,000 census entries, and 15,000 immigration records — surviving for people who carried it. In 1840, the state of Maine held the largest single concentration of American Barbour families, accounting for close to a fifth of all those then recorded in the United States, before the surname’s American population overtook other regions by 1880. As with most occupational surnames, Barbour shares roots with the plainer English form “Barber,” and both spellings can appear within the same family tree depending on which side of the border, or which century, a given record was written down in.
For anyone honouring the Barbour name at home, a Barbour ceramic ornament puts the name on the tree each Christmas. The full current range of Barbour pieces can be browsed by searching Barbour in our store.
Fun Facts About the Barbour Name
John Barbour’s poem The Brus contains what is often quoted as one of the earliest and most famous statements of the idea of freedom in Scots-language literature: “A! Fredome is a noble thing, / Fredome mayss man to haiff liking.” The 18th-century historian John Pinkerton reportedly rated Barbour’s poetry above that of Dante and Petrarch. Two completely separate Barbour lines went on to shape very different worlds an ocean apart: one produced a governor, a senator, and a U.S. Supreme Court justice in Virginia, while another, from Galloway, founded the waxed-jacket company that still bears the family name in South Shields, England, today. And the earliest datable Barbours in Scotland — a Robert Barbour granted land at Craigie in 1309 and a John Barbour paid by the crown in 1328 — both appear in the records of King Robert the Bruce himself, generations before the poet made the Bruce’s story famous. Centuries after that, Edinburgh gynaecologist A. H. Freeland Barbour won a gold medal for his 1884 thesis on spinal deformity in obstetrics and later used his standing to help save historic Old Town closes such as Chessels Court from decay.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Barbour Name
What does the surname Barbour mean?
It is an occupational surname meaning “barber” — in the medieval period, a trade that combined hair-cutting with minor surgery and dentistry.
Who was John Barbour the poet?
He was Archdeacon of Aberdeen from 1356 until his death in 1395 and the author of The Brus, a historical epic about Robert the Bruce widely considered the first major work of Scots literature.
Is Barbour a Highland clan name?
No verified clan or clan chief is attached to the Barbour surname; its documented history is occupational and regional (Aberdeen and Forfarshire) rather than clan-based.
Is the Barbour clothing brand related to the poet John Barbour?
Not directly by descent, as far as the historical record shows — they are separate bearers of the same occupational surname, born roughly five centuries apart in different parts of Scotland.
Sources and further reading
Barbour, ElectricScotland, for early Scottish records of the Barbour name and its origin as an occupational surname.
John Barbour (poet), Wikipedia, for the biography of the author of The Brus.
Barbour family, Wikipedia, for the American political dynasty descended from a 17th-century Scottish emigrant.
Barbour (company), Wikipedia, for the founding of J. Barbour & Sons by a Galloway-born John Barbour in 1894.
A. H. Freeland Barbour, Wikipedia, for the Edinburgh gynaecologist and Old Town heritage restorer.
Barbour Surname Meaning & Barbour Family History, Ancestry.com, for modern population and distribution records.
Browse our Barbour Scottish heritage gifts to explore the available collection.