What Is a Variant?
A technical explanation can be found at the Thesaurus of British Surnames website.
There are genetic variants (unrelated lineages) using the same surname, as well as surname variants (different spellings) in the same genetic lineage.
Variants Registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies
(Limited to five; chosen at study outset for phonetic and spelling similarity.) These may change with growing knowledge of these surnames.
Bowes, Bowe, Bows, Bow, Boe, Boaz
Variants Registered in the DNA Project at FTDNA
(Expanded to capture variants located through documentary research, but for which there is not a separate DNA project set up. For those with their own DNA project, matches will come to our attention through the FTDNA database and can then be added to our project.)
Boas, Boase, Boaz, Boe, Boes, Boetius, Boewe, Boey, Bohig, Bohill, Booe, Bouse, Bow, Bowe, Bowes, Bowige, Bows, Bowz, Boye, Boyes, Buo, Buoy, Bwee, Bwoy, de Bowes