The story
* As a Scottish surname, from several places such as Burnis, Burnes, Burnhouse, containing the noun burn (“stream”). * As an English and Scottish surname, variant of Burn or Barnes. * As an Irish surname, Anglicized from Ó Broin, see Byrne. * As a Jewish surname, Americanized and shortened from Bernstein.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.