- Means “child of the fields”
- Commonly used as a surname
- This unisex name can be used for boys or girls
- May also be spelled Blaire (especially as a feminine variant)
- Famous for actress Blair Brown and the movie “The Blair Witch Project”
The text below is excerpted with permission from the book The Encyclopedia of American Last Names: Family Genealogy and Meanings for 1000 Surnames of Early European Settlers to the United States.
History of the name Blair
The Gaelic word blair or blár, common in Scotch names, means a plain or field. In the later Ossianic poetry, it usually denoted a field of battle.
The name of the town of Blarney, near Cork, Ireland, which contains the Blarney Stone, is a diminutive of blár (Irish Blárna, the “little field”).
The Blair family is descended from William de Blair, who was born before 1185.
