Gaelic bin, the 'fair,' white. Malise Bane was juror on an inquest on the lands of Thomas de Cremennane, 1320 (Levenax, p. 82). In 1392 John Bane resigned the five pound land of Langneuton, Yester, East Lothian. The legend on his seal reads: S' Iohis Bnoe (RHM., II, 5; Seals Supp., 79), John Bane was burgess of Edinburgh, 1423 (Egidii, p. 45), and Robert Bane held a tenement in the Flukargait, Dundee, 1442 (Charters and Writs, Dundee, p. 21; REB., I, 92). Master William Bane had a safe conduct to pass through England, 1453 (Bain, IV, 1254). David Bane or Bayn was abbot of Dere (Deer), 1456—1460 (Pap. Lett., XI, p. 344,585), and abbot of Cupar, 1462—1480. Duncan Bane took part in the second hership of Petty, 1513 (Rose, p. 190), and John Bane, a follower of Donald Gorme of Sleat, had remission for his part in laying waste Trouterness in Sky and Kenlochew in Ross, 1541 (RSS., II, 3943). See also Bain and Bayne.

Being familiar with Bane as a surname in Co. Clare I was surprised to find how rare it is outside counties Clare and Galway. For the benefit of readers who do not know Ireland well it should be mentioned that its pronunciation cannot be phonetically indicated by reference to any sound in English, nor it is as broad as the Irish word ban (white) from which it comes -—- the sound is the same as the bane in the town of Ferbane, quite different from Bayne.* It originated, of course, as a distinguishing epithet, forming first an agnomen and sometimes being retained as a hereditary surname. But the extent to which families once so called reverted to their ancestral surname, or adopted White by translation, is indicated by statistics: in 1659the “census” lists Bane is a principal Irish name in ten of the 27 counties which are included in what survives of that document; in 1793 the local census of Moycullen, Co. Galway, records 12 Bane families in that parish alone; yet in 1866 there were only eight births registered for Bane in all Ireland, by 1890 this fell below five, and in the current telephone directory there is not one entry for the name either in Dublin or in the country.

*There is an English name Bayne or Baynes (sometimes written Bane in mediaeval documents). In Scotland Bayne has been used as an anglicization of ban: Reaney gives an instance where a man in 1623 is described as “Bayne alias Quhyte.”

= Bain, q.v.

An epithetic surname formed from the Irish adjective bán (white). SIF 13

Scotland. Gaelic, bane, white or fair, as Donald Bane, "the fair Donald;" often confused with Baines.

From the Old Norse, Beinir; from the Frisian, Baino, Bemo; in the Domesday Book, Bann, Bain; from the Swedish, Béen; from the Flemish, Beine; from the German, Bein, Bens; from the Danish, Beine, Behn, Been; from the Dutch, Banen, Beien, Benier, Benner, Beno; a personal name.