Burke family

Burke family
Family heritage
Blood status	Pure-blood
Notable family members	Caractacus Burke Elizabeth Burke
Status	Unknown
Relationships
Related families	Black family Flint family Malfoy family (possibly)
Affiliation
House(s)	Slytherin
Loyalty	Borgin and Burkes

Burke is the surname of a pure-blood wizarding family, and one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

They are related to the Black, Flint and possibly the Malfoy families and they may be the co-owners of the Knockturn Alley shop Borgin and Burkes, which specialises in Dark artefacts.

Family Members

• Belvina Burke née Black — the only daughter of Phineas Nigellus Black and Ursula Flint
• Caractacus Burke — one of the original founders of Borgin and Burkes
• Elizabeth Burke — a witch with a portrait in the Slytherin Dungeon of Hogwarts Castle who encourages Slytherin students to be "mean to Mudbloods"
• Two sons of Herbert and Belvina Burke
• Daughter of Herbert and Belvina Burke
• Herbert Burke — husband of Belvina Black

Etymology

Burke is Anglo-Norman pronunciation of burgh, which was "a topographical surname​ for someone who lived in a fortified place." In Middle English, it meant a "fort or fortified town," though in Old English, it meant "to murder by suffocation, or so as to produce few marks of violence, for the purpose of obtaining a body to be sold for dissection" or "to smother; to conceal, hush up, suppress." It can also be a variant of the British slang term berk, meaning "idiot". Burke is also a real surname common in Britain and Ireland. It comes from the Norman de Burgo which was Anglicised in Irish as de Búrca.

In the real world, Edmund Burke, generally known only by his surname, was an Anglo-Irish political philosopher who argued in favour of traditional monarchism. Thus perhaps the Burke family having many members as pure blood supremacists is meant as an allusion to this historical figure.