From Ancestry Jewish (Ashkenazic): from the Yiddish male personal name Ber (see Baer).Variant spelling of German Bahr or Baer.Polish and Czech: from a short form of the personal name Bartolomaeus (Polish Bartlomiej, Czech Bartolomej; see Bartholomew).Hungarian (Bár): from the old secular personal name Bár.
Re our Swiss/German ancestors; We find various spellings of this name, including Bar, Barr, Bahr, Bear, Bare, among others. -W