It is possible to assess how many are sharing the same surname by drawing on different sources of information.
There are about 14 100 named Bérubé in the Province of Québec alone, according to a study from 2006, out of 18 056 for Canada as a whole, according to Forebears.io/surnames. The surname is ranking 219th for the whole of Canada. If we add to this 7,730 Americans, this gives us a total of 25,786 for North America, this being limited to the BERUBE spelling, not including some people named Burbee, Burbey or Burby for instance. To this we can add about fifty persons who lightly modified the name spelling in Berubee (36), Beruby, Berubey, Beerube, Buerube, Berrub or Brube. But, there are also as many who changed it to Burbee, Burbey, Burby, Burhby, Bereby, Berby, Berrby, Berbey or Berbe, which we largely confused with people coming from England, Norway and even Brazil. There are, in fact, as many as 26,000 people who are descending in North America or elsewhere in the world from Damian (Damien) Berrubey (also written Berruby or Barube) who came from Upper Normandy in 1671, people who share his surname, all this without counting all those who are from a mother named Bérubé/Berube or are known only under their husband’s name. There is finally a dozen of Berubes in Australia and as many in New Zealand who seem to come from North America. According to the site already mentioned, there are 15 in Ireland, 85 in the Dominican Républic , 19 in Thaïland and only 6 in Germany, 4 in Greece and 2 in England, a number that is certainly underestimated if we take into account all the variant spellings that the name took since the birth of Modern English
According to one website there are 112 Berubés/Bérubés in France, there are 685 Berrubés bé and maybe 58 named Barubé or Barube. According to another source, we can add 54 Berubes in England and 45 in Switzerland. We have all reasons to believe that most of them descend from a single ancestor who lived before Damien. We have to underline that many ancient surnames disappeared in France between 1900 and 2000 according to the Larousse de la généalogie, more than 220 000 on half a million. The two world wars being largely responsible, this phenomenon certainly occurred in Great Britain as well. Furthermore, there is also some confusion in France with people named Berreby/Berrebi who came from North Africa, like there is also in Brazil with people named Beribe or Capiberibe.
On the other hand, there are 862 people named Burby in the world, including 695 in the USA, 81 in England (they were 256 in 1891), 30 in Australia, 16 in Canada, 2 in Norway. Since the name Beruby/Berube first appeared in England during the Middle Age, it seems to have the same origin as the name Burby and it’s coming from the same areas of this country. We may discover one day, through DNA testing, that some of them share a more distant common ancestor with the Berubes. The same question can be raised about people named Barroby, of whom there are 21 in Canada. Finally, there are in Scandinavia names of the same origin, but not related, for instance 157 named Bergby in Norway (+ 19 in the USA), 58 named Barreby and 37 Barrebo in Sweden, 65 named Borbye and 25 Borreby in Denmark.
2018-05-28 updated 2021-06-15
