West Germanic Bernhard is composed from the two elements bern "bear" and hard "brave, hardy".

[3] Its native Old English cognate was Beornheard, which was replaced or merged with the French form Bernard that was brought to England after the Norman Conquest.

[4] Its wider use was popularized due to Saint Bernhard of Clairvaux (canonized in 1174).

[5] As of 2014, 42.2% of all known bearers of the surname Bernard were residents of France (frequency 1:392), 12.5% of the United States (1:7,203), 7.0% of Haiti (1:382), 6.6% of Tanzania (1:1,961), 4.8% of Canada (1:1,896), 3.6% of Nigeria (1:12,221), 2.7% of Burundi (1:894), 1.9% of Belgium (1:1,500), 1.6% of Rwanda (1:1,745), 1.2% of Germany (1:16,397), 1.2% of Jamaica (1:595), 1.1% of Ghana (1:6,179), 1.0% of England (1:13,691) and 1.0% of Madagascar (1:6,098).

In France, the frequency of the surname was higher than national average (1:392) in the following regions:[6] The following people and items share the name Bernard: