This surname is derived from the name of an ancestor. 'the son of Brun' (i.e. Brown), whence also Brownson, which see. In Domesday Brun appears as a personal name; compare German Bruno. Brown stands sixth among the surnames of England and Wales in point of numbers.

Gamel fil Brun, c. Henry I: Estates and Families of Cumberland, Cumberland.

Brun Ednth, Salop, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Matilda relicta Brun, Oxfordshire, ibid.

Brune relicta Johannis, Cambridgeshire, ibid.

Reginald III Brun. Rotuli Curiae Regis.

Willelmus Branson, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

(a) Nick, 'the brown,' a sobriquet of complexion, extremely common in all early registers.

Hugh le Brun, Suffolk, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Robert le Brun, Buckinghamshire, ibid.

Johanna la Brune, Oxfordshire, ibid.

Robert Broun, Somerset, 1 Edward III: Kiiby's Quest.

Willelmus Broune, et uxor, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

A very common name in Scotland, of more than one origin. (1) Brun is a common personal name in Old English charters, e.g. Brun, c. 970, Brun bydel ('beadle'), c. 1000 (Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus, 981, 1353), etc. The name is from an old adjective meaning 'brown dark red,' Old English and OHG. brun ON. brunn. The adjective was also borrowed from OHG. into old French and is the source of the French surname Le Brun. A family of this name were the possessors of several estates in Cumberland shortly after the Norman Conquest. Gamel, son of Brun came into possession of Bothel (now Boode) in the time of Henry I (1100—1135). Gilchrist, son of Bruun witnessed a charter by R. son of Dunegal to the Hospital of S. Peter of York c. 1136 (cited in Bain, II, p. 421), Patric Brun witnessed resignation of land of Weremundebi (Warmanbie in Annandale) and Anant between 1194—1214 (Annandale, I, p. 3; Bain, I, 606). Ricardus Brun witnessed a charter by Ebrardus de Penkathleht (Pencaitland near Edinburgh) to the church of S. Cuthbert of Durham in the reign of William the Lion (Raine, 163). Several individuals of this name are recorded in the thirteenth century, but what connection, if any, existed between them is not known. Robert Brune witnessed a gift of land to the Hospital of Soltre c. 1250—1266 (Soltre, p. 32). Richard Broun, witness in Irvine, 1260 (Irvine, 1, p. 5), and another Richard Brun was an assizer in Elgin, of which place he was an inhabitant in 1261. William Brun, who witnessed a charter of Donald, earl of Mar, of the lands of Dorlaw or Dronlaw c. 1279—1294 (SCM., II, p. 313) is probably William Brun, witness in Dundee, 1281 (HP., II, p. 223). Several of this name in the shires of Berwick, Edinburgh, Lanark, and Linlithgow rendered homage, 1296 (Bain, II). Joannes Broun who had a grant of the thanage of Formerteine (Fermartyn) from Robert I (RMS. I, App. II, 423) is probably the person who was sheriff of Aberdeen, 1331—1332 (ER., I,. p. 24). William "dictus Brune del Borumore" (the Boroughmuir of Edinburgh) granted to John de Raynton a charter of the lands of Kirclambirston c. 1332 (BNCH., XVI, p. 331), and Ricardus Bron de Otterston attested the marches of Kyrknes and Louchor, 1395 (RPSA., p. 5). Patrick Broun was burgess of Edinburgh, 1405, and John Brown, clerk and notary public there, 1426 (Egidii, p. 41, 47). Broun of Hartrie near Biggar is said to have been settled there from about the end of the fourteenth century, and Broun of Colstounclaim descent from and bear the arms of the ancient royal house of France three fieur-de-lys. Several individuals of this name from Scotland entered the French military service about the middle of the fifteenth century, and their names are recorded in the muster-rolls as Brom, Bron, Brun, and le Brun (Forbes-Leith, Scots men at arms in France). Members of a younger branch of Broun of Colstoun settled in Elsinore, Denmark, and became prominent merchants there. Many of the name Brown in Islay, says the late Hector Maclean, "came to the island from the low country (i. e. Lowlands) within the past century, and have no claim to be considered descendants of the Britheamh Ileach (the Islay Judge)" (Book of Islay, p. 19n); and the Browns of Tiree at the present day, says the late Rev. J Gregorson Campbell, are called Brunaich, evidently a word not of native origin, and likely an adaptation of English Brown (Waifs and strays of Celtic tradition, v. 5, p. 12). (2) From b Mac a'bhriuthainn, from britheamhain, the former Gaelic genitive of britheamh, 'brehon, breive, judge.' Pat: M' aBriuin is one of the witnesses in the unique Gaelic charter of 1408 (Bk. Islay, p. 18). Donald Broune was rector of Lochow, 1539 (Poltalloch Writs, p. 184). Robert Abroun is recorded in Aberruthven, 1616 (Dunblane), and Niall M'Abrioune was servitor to the laird of Lochnell, 1658. The name of Diorbhorgail Nic a' Bhriuthainn, the royalist poetess and satirist of the Campbells of the beginning of the eighteenth century is Englished Dorothy Brown. Arnong the many islands on the west coast is one called Elan a Bhriu, 'the judge's isle.' (3) The name is also used as an English rendering of Gaelic M'llle dhuinn, and possibly of earlier M'Mhaoil dhuinn (see Macilduin). Braun 1676, Bron 1446, Brouin 1546, Broun 1320, Broune 1502, Browne 1509, Browyn 1525, Brune 1333 Brwne 1505.

(Teutonic) Of Dark Reddish Complexion [Middle English br(o)un, Old Teutonic brún, brown] Brún was a fairly common name among the Anglo-Saxons.

Brun Edrith.—Hundred Rolls Robert le Brun.— do.

Note.—Brown(e is sometimes an Anglicization of the corresp. Ger. Braun and the French Brun, both from Old Teutonic Brún.

One of the “Tribes of Galway". Other families of Browne were established in Ireland at different times from the Anglo-Norman invasion onwards.

Bibl; IF 64 etc; MIF 246,318; Map Gal and Lim

(English, Scottish) One with a dark complexion; descendant of Brun (brown).

“a name, I suspect, of long subsequent date.”—Sir Egerton Brydges. Undoubtedly so, in its present modernized guise; but as Le Brun or Brunnus, it frequently occurs in the Norman Exchequer Rolls of the twelfth century, and is several times written in Domesday. William le Brun held in Suffolk; and Bruno (perhaps the same) in Warwickshire: besides “Brun presbyter” in Oxfordshire. Yet it would be presumptuous to pronounce all the Brownes to be of Norman lineage, One of the family, writing in the Sussex Archæologia, claims for it a far older and loftier origin. “The name,” he says, “is now well understood to be taken from the name of an office or position of dignity, which in a Scandinavian form is known as bran or bren, and which was, with the numerous tribes of the N.W. of Europe, the title of chieftain or head of the clan.” From this he derives Brandenburg (Brenniborg) and Brunswick (Braunschweig); reminding us incidentally of Brennus, and Bran, the father of Caractacus. for they are so preponderant, that in one single year (1838), 5585 births, marriages, and deaths, were registered among them: and twenty-one different families “have received from the Sovereign hereditary titles of nobility.”—Sir Bernard Burke.

Of these, the most considerable—that of the Viscounts Montague—was an offset of the great Norman house of La Ferté, who held the barony of La Ferté (now La Ferté Fresnel) near Evreux. Hugh de la Ferté is mentioned by Wace at Hastings. Richard de la Ferté accompanied Robert of Normandy to Palestine in 1096, and his youngest son, Gamel, surnamed Le Brun (according to family tradition to distinguish him from a brother called Le Blond), settled in Cumberland, where he had baronial grants from Waldeve FitzGospatric, and his descendants long flourished, the name gradually changing to Broyne, Broun, or Browne. Anthony, a younger son of Robert le Broun, knight of the shire for Cumberland 1317-1339, settled in London, became a rich merchant, and was created a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Richard II., as a reward for having lent the King a very large sum of money, and then generously cancelled the bond. He left two sons, Sir Robert and Sir Stephen, the latter of whom became Lord Mayor of London in 1439. The eldest, Sir Robert, of Beech- worth, in Surrey, was the ancestor of the baronets of Beechworth, extinct in 1690; and of Anthony Browne, the fortunate cadet with whom the promotion of the family began. He was “Standard Bearer throughout the whole realm of England and elsewhere” under Henry VII.: Esquire of the Body to the King, Constable of Queenborough, and carried away one of the chief matrimonial prizes of the day, Lady Lucy Nevill, the fourth of the great Montague heiresses, and widow of Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam.

Their son, a second Sir Anthony, was an able and astute courtier, who, throughout the reign of Henry VIII., stood high in the favour and confidence of his master, and served him faithfully and efficiently. “The times,” says Lloyd, “were dark: his carriage so too: the waves were boisterous; but he, the solid rock, or the well-guided ship that could go with the tide.” He was knighted at the siege of Morlaix in 1523; in 1525 appointed an Esquire of the King’s Body; then Master of the Horse for life—”an eminent office” in those days—in 1539, and a Knight of the Garter in 1540. He attended the King to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, where he had the credit of unhorsing the French King in a joust, and was his proxy at the marriage ceremony with Anne of Cleves. There was a picture of him at Cowdray in his parti-coloured wedding suit, thus described by Horace Walpole: “He is in blue and white; only the right leg is entirely white, which was robed for the act of putting into bed with her. But when the King came to marry her, he only put his leg into bed to kick her out.” Sir Anthony describes his first interview with the Royal bride in melancholy terms, saying “he was never more dismayed in all his life, lamenting in his heart, which altered his outward countenance, to see the lady so far and unlike what was reported.” At the Dissolution of the Monasteries, he received the splendid gift of Battle Abbey, once “the pledge and token of the royal crown,” with the lion’s share of its possessions. The story goes, that when he was holding his house-warming in the Abbot’s Hall with great rejoicings and festivity, a monk suddenly made his appearance in the midst of the guests, strode up to the dais, and pronounced a solemn malediction upon the spoliator of the Church. He warned Sir Anthony that the curse would cleave to his remotest posterity, and foretold the special doom that was to be their temporal punishment. “By fire and water,” he cried, “your line shall come to an end, and perish out of the land!” This prophecy sunk deep in the minds of men; for it was still well remembered and current in the county, when it came to pass after the lapse of two hundred and fifty years.

In 1542, another great estate accrued to him by the death of his half-brother, William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton, from whom he inherited (with Ease- bourne Priory, Waverley Abbey, and some other Church lands), the beautiful domain of Cowdray in West Sussex, where a stately mansion had just been built. He had himself commenced a great manor-house at Battle, and when, in 1547, he was found to be one of the executors of Henry VIII.’s will, and the guardian of his two younger children, he added a wing for the reception of the Princess Elizabeth, who it was proposed should take up her abode with him. But he died, before it was completed, in the following year. He had married Alice, daughter of Sir John Gage; and when left a widower at the ripe age of sixty, obtained the hand of a beautiful and high-born girl of fifteen, Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald— Surrey’s “fair Geraldine.”

His eldest son (by his first wife) was created Viscount Montague by Queen Mary, on the occasion of her marriage with Philip of Spain. She further appointed him her Master of the Horse, and gave him the Garter in 1555. He was through life a zealous and uncompromising Roman Catholic, resolutely refusing to vote for the abolition of the Pope’s supremacy at the accession of Elizabeth; yet, when the realm was threatened with invasion, and some of his co-religionists were having masses said for the success of the Armada, he was “the first that showed his bands to the Queen” at Tilbury. He was “very sickly and in age,” but came ready to hazard his life, and all else he had to give, in her quarrel, bringing with him about two hundred horsemen, “led by his two sons, and with them a young child, very comely, seated on horseback, being the heir of his house, that is, the eldest son of his son and heir.”

Three years later, during one of her summer progresses in Sussex, Elizabeth spent six days with him at Cowdray, and was magnificently entertained, with the usual pageants and compliments. There exists a long and detailed account of this Royal visit, where we find it noted that on Sunday morning three oxen and one hundred and forty geese were consumed at breakfast; and on the Thursday following the Queen dined at a table “48 yardes long, in the privie walks of the garden.”

The good old Viscount died in the ensuing year, and was succeeded by the “comely child” his grandson, Anthony Mary, whom, Horace Walpole includes among his “Royal and Noble Authors,” on the strength of a voluminous “Booke of Orders and Rules for the better Direction and Government of my Household and Family,” that he compiled when he came of age. It furnishes a very curious picture of a nobleman’s establishment in 1595. The number of retainers is prodigious; thirty-seven “Principal Officers” are enumerated, many of whom had subordinates under them; the first fourteen being “Gentlemen by birth,” the next two “Gentlemen by Office,” and the rest “Yeomen Officers.” Nor does this long list include other servants incidentally mentioned, such as “Butler, Pantler, Housekeeper, Footemen, Caters (Caterers), Gentlemen’s servants, Boys of the Kytchen,” &c. &c., besides “Gentlewomen,” and the necessary complement of “Chambermaydes” and “Lawnderers.” The etiquette observed would not have disgraced the Court of Louis XIV. Lord Montague never left the house without having one, at least, of the Gentlemen of his Chamber, and several Yeomen of his Chamber and Gentlemen Waiters in “diligent attendance”: if he rode out, the Gentleman of the Horse helped him into his saddle, while the Yeoman of the Horse held his stirrup, and a footman stood at his horse’s head. When he and his wife took a journey, the entire household, headed by the Steward, rode in array before him, always bare-headed when they passed through a town or village, followed by his “brethren, children, and uncles,” with all the parade of a royal progress. He could not sit down to any meal till a minute and august ceremonial had been gone through, the observances commencing with the cookery, for the Clerk of the Kitchen is enjoined to suffer “none to stand unseemely with his back to my meate when it is at the range.” Even the dinner table was an object of reverence; the Yeomen of the Ewry only approached it with three low obeisances, and kissed it respectfully before laying the cloth. The dinner and supper were brought in by a long and solemn procession, heralded, on important occasions, by the Marshall of the Hall, followed by the Steward and Comptroller, bearing their white wands of office, and all stood up uncovered as they crossed the hall. The rest of the household took their meals at six different tables, divided according to their rank by the most punctilious rule of precedence. Finally, at night, a Gentleman of the Chamber lighted his Lord to his room, and tucked him up in bed.

Unfortunately for Lord Montague, Guy Fawkes had twice been—though for a short time only—a member of this over-grown household; and on the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, he was sent to the Tower as an accomplice. His father- in-law, Lord Dorset, interceded in his behalf, and succeeded, it is said, in mitigating his sentence, though he was condemned to pay a fine of ₤4000; and suffer imprisonment during the King’s pleasure.

His son was further impoverished by his loyalty during the Civil War, when his estates were sequestered, and Cowdray was garrisoned and somewhat misused by Sir William Waller. He was obliged to dispark the Great Park at Battle, and his successor, again in want of ready money, pulled down the great conventual kitchen for the sake of the materials. The Abbey itself was disposed of by the sixth Viscount, who sold it in 1719 to Sir Thomas Webster. The next Lord, who married a Methodist of Lady Huntingdon’s sect, was the first of the family that seceded from the Church of Rome; and it was accordingly on his only son and heir that the monk’s curse lighted. This eighth Viscount Montague was drowned in the Rhine in September 1793, when only twenty- four years of age. He was on a boating expedition with his friend Mr. Sedley Burdett, and made a fool-hardy attempt to shoot the falls of Laufenberg, in which they both lost their lives. They had been duly advised of the danger of the venture, and entreated not to risk it; but warning and persuasion were alike disregarded. At the last moment, as they were stepping into their boat, Lord Montague’s servant clutched his collar, crying “My lord—my lord! the curse of water!” but he wrenched himself free, and sprang away out of reach. The boat capsized in the second wave of the Laufen, and the two gentlemen, with their dog, were seen swimming gallantly through the surges, till all disappeared in the vortex under the Oelberg. The Rhine is there one hundred feet deep, and though large rewards were more than once offered, the bodies could never be recovered.

The messenger that carried these heavy tidings to England crossed another hurrying out to inform the poor young Viscount of a dire calamity that had befallen him at home. On the night of September 24, 1793, Cowdray House was burnt to the ground. It was conjectured that some careless workmen had left a pan of smouldering charcoal behind in the great gallery; at all events the fire, however caused, spread so rapidly and devouringly that scarcely anything could be saved. Pictures, carvings, tapestries, frescoes, and furniture—the accumulated treasures of generations - all perished together in the flames, and the curse pronounced upon the sacreligious Sir Anthony was fulfilled to the very letter. By flood and by fire his house had been overthrown, and come to its appointed end. It is true that one heir male was left, a distant cousin, then an old bachelor, who bore the title for four years, but it expired at his death in 1797.

With the extinction of the family in the male line, it might have been supposed that the curse had done its work, and would thenceforward no longer rest on the doomed inheritance. But the saddest part of the tragedy is yet to be told.

Cowdray had passed to the only sister of the poor young man drowned at Laufenberg, Elizabeth Mary, married in 1794 to Stephen Poyntz of Midgeham in Berkshire, by whom she had a family of two sons and three daughters. In the summer of 1815, Mr. and Mrs. Poyntz were staying with their children at Bognor, and two Miss Parrys, the daughters of Admiral Parry, who were relations of hers, were on a visit to them. One fine, warm day, Mr. Poyntz proposed a boating excursion, and, with these ladies and his two sons, put out to sea in a little skiff, managed by a boatman and his boy. Mrs. Poyntz, who is said to have had a superstitious dread of going on the water, declined accompanying him, and, as the evening approached, was sitting at the window watching them on their return home. They were close in shore, when a sudden squall struck the sail and upset the boat, and the wretched mother saw her two sons drowned literally before her eyes. For some time they clung to their father’s coat, who had managed to lay hold of the capsized boat; but, whether from cramp or terror, their strength failed them, and poor Mr. Poyntz, unable to assist them, had the agony of feeling one after the other let go, and drop back into the sea. The two Miss Parrys and the sailor’s lad were also drowned, but Mr. Poyntz was rescued by the boatman; and of the merry party that had set out together that morning, they returned the sole survivors. This terrible event was at once put to the account of the accursed inheritance of Cowdray; and there had, in truth, been evil auguries abroad long before it happened. Croker writes in 1831: “When I visited the ruins of Cowdray twenty years ago, I was reminded (in addition to other stories These “other stories” referred to a popular tradition that the fifth Viscount, having been refused absolution by his confessor, murdered the poor priest as he sat “in the seat of pardon and judgment,” and was supposed to have fled the country. In reality he went no further than the keeper’s lodge, where he lay for years ensconced in the “priest’s hole,” a narrow hiding place, which in old days had sheltered many a hunted fugitive from sheriff or pursuivant. There was just room for a man to sit down, with his back in a niche contrived in the wall, and his knees fitted into a space hollowed out in front; and from this stifling dungeon he only issued out at night, to breathe the air. He used to take his walk in the old pleasaunce, called the Close Walks, where Lady Montague, always dressed (no doubt purposely) in a white gown and mantle, regularly came out to meet him; and the place—now known as the Lady’s Walk—gained the desired reputation of being haunted, and was sedulously avoided after nightfall.) that the curse of both fire and water had fallen on Cowdray, and the good folks of the neighbourhood did not scruple to prophesy that it would turn out a fatal inheritance. At that period, the present possessor, Mr. Poyntz, who had married Lord Montague’s heiress, had two sons, who seem destined to inherit Cowdray: but on July 7, 1815, these young gentlemen, boating off Bognor with their father, on a very fine day, the boat was unaccountably upset, the two youths perished, and thus were once more fulfilled the forebodings of superstition.”

The three daughters, thus become co-heiresses, divided the property between them, and Cowdray was sold in 1843. Frances Elizabeth, the eldest, married first Robert, eighteenth Lord Clinton, and secondly Sir Horace Seymour; the second, Elizabeth Georgiana, married Frederick, fourth Earl Spencer; and the youngest, Isabella, married Brownlow, second Marquess of Exeter. The two latter narrowly escaped sharing their brother’s fate. Lady Clinton had married in the preceeding year, and was not with them; but the younger sisters were both to have joined the boating party, had Lady Exeter been ready in time. She had often been too late before, and as their father was rigidly punctual, her sister Elizabeth remained behind with her to share the blame, and Mr. Poyntz fortunately declared that he would not wait for them.

Dallaway, in his History of Sussex, mentions that, “a branch of this family, according to uncertain tradition, was settled in Ireland in 1565; the ancestor having accompanied Sir H. Sydney, Lord Deputy, from whom the present Marquess of Sligo is descended.” This ancestor, Thomas Browne, of whose descent the peerages furnish no details, was seated in Mayo, where his son—the first sheriff of the county—lost his life in an affray with the native Irish, and his posterity continues to the present day. John Browne, created a baronet in 1632, had two sons, Sir George, and John: from the elder are derived the Viscounts Kilmaine; from the younger, the Marquesses of Sligo.

One of the commonest of our family names, entering into the proverb, "Smith, Jones, Brown, and Robinson," to designate the ignubile vulgus. According to the Reg. General's XVI. Report, it stands sixth among the surnames of England and Wales in point of numbers, Williams, Taylor, and Davies intervening between Jones and this. Within a given period the Smiths were 33,557, and the Browns, 14,346. Its etymology is obvious, and like the Roman Fuseus, the French Le Brun, the Germ, and Dutch Bruin, the name refers to the dark complexion of its original bearers. It is difficult to discriminate between the Browns of Saxon and those of Norman descent, the old orthography being in both instances brun. Domesd. has several Bruns, apparently Saxon, but the Battel Abbey Roll has its Le Brun from Normandy, and subsequently we have Le Bruns in plenty, in England, Scotland, and (at Henry II.'s invasion) in Ireland, and ultimately in every rank of society. The Scottish form is Broun, a retained medievalism. A family of French refugees who settled in Norfolk after the Rev. of the Edict of Nantes, 1685, under the name of Brunet, now write themselves Browne.

Originally Broun, and le Brun-dark complexioned. The family have been free Barons of Colstoun in Haddingtonshire, since 1116.

The family claim descent from the Royal family of France, and bear for their arms, gu., three fleur de lis or.

A name derived from complexion, color of hair or garments, consequently, a very common name.

A family evidently of foreign descent. one of whom, Hamo le Brun, was Lord of Stapleford and Tarvin, Cheshire, t. Henry II. This line is armorially connected with an Irish line, of whom William Brone witnessed the charter of Dunbrody 1178 (Mon. ii. 1027). Nigel le Brun had a writ of military summons 1309, and Fremond Bruyn was one of the Barons of Ireland 1315-17 (Palgr. Parl. Writs). From this line descend the Lords Oranmore.

Turulph, a companion of Rollo, obtained, 912, the barony of La Ferté (Firmitas), near Evreux, now la Ferté-Fresnel. His grandson of the same name lived t. Rich. I. (La Roque). Radulphus de la Ferté lived before 1000. William, his son, gave the forest of Notre Dame des Bois to St. Evroult Abbey. Hugh de la Ferté is mentioned by Wace at Hastings. Richard de la F. accompanied Robert of Normandy to Palestine 1096, and had eight sons, the youngest of whom, Gamel de la Ferté, surnamed le Brun, settled in Cumberland, where he had baronial grants from Waldeve Fitz-Gospatric, t. Henry I. The family of De La Fertd, also called le Brun, long flourished in Cumberland, and its name gradually changed to Broyne, Broun, and Browne. Anthony, younger son of Robert le Broune, M.P. for Cumberland 1317-1339, was father of Robert, from whom descended the Marquises of Sligo, Barons Kilmaine, and Viscounts Montague.

Browne: in Leland, Boroun; in interpolation.

Brown. —This name may be said to be universally distributed over England, but in very varying degrees in different counties. The north of England is especially remarkable for the number of Browns, and the name extends with equal frequency across the border, being found over a large part of Scotland, though most characteristic of the counties south of the Forth and the Clyde. In the rest of England it is more numerous in the eastern half than in the western half; but in the midland and inland counties its distribution is often capricious, and we may find it in very different proportions in adjacent counties, as in those of Stafford and Warwick, or in those of Oxford and Wilts. However, in the south - west of England and in the counties bordering South Wales we find as a general rule a diminished number of Browns. Wales is the death - ground of the name.

The name Brown is an old colour-name which is a form of nickname. Colour-names usually referred to the complexion or hair of the owner. There are several common names which began life as colour-names. Thus the name Reed, Reid (or Read) derives from the Old English word ‘read’ which means ‘red’. Similarly, Blake is thought in most cases to derive from the Old English word ‘blac’ which means ‘black’; and Blunt derives from the Middle English word ‘blund’, meaning ‘white’ or ‘fair-haired’.

The name Brown derives from the Old English word ‘brun’, meaning ‘brown’, though in some cases it may derive from a foreign version of the same word. The name Brown, in the form Brun, was certainly prevalent throughout the country before the Norman Conquest. However, a number of Bruns came across the Channel with William the Conqueror so, in some cases, the name Brown derives from the French root (the modern French word for brown is ‘brun’).

In the 1066 records of the Domesday Book we find reference to one Brun, and the Latinised form Brunus. These were personal names. However, by 1273 we find the surname form with Hugh le Brun in Suffolk and Robert le Brun in Buckinghamshire.

Naturally enough, such a simple and widespread name soon acquired many variations, several of which remain in use to this day. Brownett and Brunet are diminutives of the Old French Brun. Browning represents Old English Bruning, from the Old English Brun-in the same way as Dunning or Downing from Dunn, ‘the dark, swarthy or dun-coloured one’. Brownutt comes from a medieval nickname describing its owner as ‘brown as a nut’. Brownsmith comes from the Old English ‘brun’ and ‘smith’, meaning ‘a worker in copper or brass’. The names Brownson and Brunson simply mean ‘son of Brown’. And Brownjohn derives from an old medieval nickname meaning ‘John with the brown hair (or face)’.

For many years Brown has been Scotland’s third most numerous surname-after Smith and McDonald. However, some Scottish Browns may derive their name from a different source from their English counterparts. In England the name usually comes from the Old English, or sometimes from the Old French, but in Scotland and parts of the north of England, the name may sometimes come from the Old Scandinavian ‘Brunn’-a subtle distinction, but it spreads the origins of the Browns from Norway to Brittany.

Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court which marked the beginning of the end of segregation. The Court ruled that ‘separate but equal’ educational facilities for people of different races were inherently unequal, and thus violated the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which guarantees all citizens equal protection under the law.

The cross-the-chest military fashion called the Sam Browne belt is named after General Sir Samuel Jones Browne (1824— 1901) who made it popular.

Brownies have long been fairies in Scotland and Eire, while around the English-speaking world they are the descriptive term for the youngest group of Girl Guides. Their name derives from their uniform.

Browns have been exceptionally inventive on both sides of the Atlantic. Inventions include all sorts of precision instruments (Joseph Rogers Brown-USA, 1810—76), armour plate (Sir John Brown-UK, 1816—96), hoisting and conveying machines (Alexander Ephraim Brown-USA, 1852—1911), the Browning submachine gun and numerous other firearms (John Moses Brown-USA, 1855—1926), and the gyroscopic compass and aeroplane speed indicator (Sydney George Brown-UK, 1873—1948).

Brownian Motion, the common term for the rapid oscillating movement of particles suspended in liquid or gas which, when viewed through a microscope, is evidence of molecular motion, is named after the Scots-born botanist, Robert Brown (1773-1858).

Six Lord Mayors of London have had a Brown-related surname: Stephen Broun (1438), John Browne (1480), William Browne (1507), William Browne (1513), Sir Richard Browne (1660) and Anthony Brown (1826).

Browns have been notable warriors in exotic places. Admiral William Brown (1777—1857) led the Argentinian fleet to two famous victories over the Brazilians. George Browne served the Czars, was enslaved in Turkey, escaped with state secrets, commanded the Russian Armies during the Danish War and retired to become the much revered Governor of Livonia in the Baltic for over 30 years.

As a colour-related name, towns and geographic features which contain the name Brown are frequent. The United Kingdom alone has 7 towns ranging from Brown Candover to Brownston while the United States has no fewer than 27 towns which contain the name. Australia has mountains called Browne and Brown, a peak named Brown Hills and a Brown Point.

With about 441,000 namesakes, Brown is the 4th most popular surname in England and Wales. There are over 49,000 Browns in Scotland where it is 3rd in popularity, while in Ireland it is estimated that with about 15,000 Browns it is the 37th most popular surname. Brown is notably popular in and around Edinburgh where an estimated one in about 85 families bears the name. In descending numerical order, Glasgow, Teesside and Nottingham are other Brown strongholds. Around the world Browns are most common in Canberra (one in 202 families), Sydney (one in 231) and Auckland (one in 244). The United States has more Browns than the entire population of Birmingham and Coventry combined-an estimated total of just over 1,430,000 makes this their 4th most popular surname.