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Surname Etymology and Meaning of BOLAND

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Name meanings and etymologies are often disputed. The information here is compiled from freely available sources, and no claims whatsoever are made for accuracy, either historical or etymological.

1. Irish (Sligo and Munster): Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Beólláin ‘descendant of Beóllán’, an old Irish name of uncertain origin.
2. English: habitational name from any of various places such as Bowland in Lancashire and West Yorkshire, Bowlands in East Yorkshire, and Bolland in Devon. All of these are most probably named with Old English boga ‘bow’ (in the sense of a bend in a river) + land ‘land’.
3. German: of uncertain origin; possibly from Slavic polan ‘rural person’, ‘peasant’, or a variant of Bolander, or an altered spelling of Böhland, a name of Slavic origin, from Old Slavic belu ‘white’, a descriptive nickname for a fair-haired person.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names (2003)