barrë

Barré is a French surname of probable descriptive or occupational origin. The accent on the final e signals a pronounced vowel in French, giving a pronunciation roughly like “ba-ray.” The element barrer, meaning to bar, block, or close, is the common etymological root, with the name likely arising from an association with barriers, fences, or a person who kept or blocked passages. The surname is found in France and among Francophone communities worldwide, and it frequently appears in hyphenated forms.

In biographical contexts, Barré is most widely recognized as part of the hyphenated surname Barré-Sinoussi. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (born 1947) is a French virologist who, with her colleague Luc Montagnier, helped identify HIV as the cause of AIDS and shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this work. The Barré element in her name reflects French naming conventions and has led to the surname’s continued visibility in scientific literature and media.

Beyond individuals, Barré appears primarily as a component of compound surnames or as a family name within French-speaking populations. The word barré in French also functions as the past participle of barrer, meaning barred or blocked, and is used in ordinary language to describe something that has been closed off or impeded. The accented form Barré is distinct from the English-derived term barre, which in other contexts refers to a ballet bar or related uses.

See also: Barre, disambiguation for forms without the accent.