On the “face” of it the origin of the name Beard seems pretty obvious; the first so named individual had a beard when it was unusual to do so, or had a relatively remarkable example.
According to a number of sites (presumably drawing on the same source) to be “clean-shaven was the norm in non-Jewish communities in northwestern Europe from the 12th to the 16th century, the crucial period for surname formation”. Certainly it is said that the Normans were clean-cut, and so any persons sporting facial growth might have been candidates for the nickname (see below). There seem to have been landowners recorded in the Domesday Book as using the name; in 1273 William cum Barba appears in the Hundred Rolls of Oxfordshire; and in 1379 an Adam cum Barba is recorded in the Poll Tax of Yorkshire. Chaucer (who himself is often depicted with a beard) makes several florid mentions of 14th century facial hair, and allegedly there were enough people wearing beards for Henry VIII (and later Elizabeth I) to levy a tax on it.
But the name may have had other roots. For example there is place called Beard in Derbyshire (now in New Mills parish) which seems to have been derived from the Old English word brerd which refers to an edge or hillside. This gave rise to family named Beard, a Beard Hall and a Beards Wood. Several commercial geneaology companies conclude that Beard is “an ancient Strathclyde-Briton name for a person who works as a poet, which was originally derived from the Gaelic word bard”. Quite feasible in Scotland perhaps, but less likely further south.
The earliest use of Beard as a surname in Essex that I have found is the appropriately named Adam Berde of “Dakenham and Berkyng” recorded in the Feet of Fines for Essex in 1376. There is strong evidence for a later Flemish root, as Huguenots named Baert arrived in London in the mid-1500s who later became known as Beard, and another group who settled in Suffolk may have gone through the same process of anglicization. The Beards of Great Totham had an oral tradition that their Beards were also from overseas; this time Bayards from France.
In all probability anyone named Beard owes his or her surname to one of a multitude of different ancestors whose name sprang up independently of one another; there is no Beard ‘primogen’, and the surname was not given for the same reason in different or even within the same localities.
Beards Of Essex 