Baskerville
A Norman locational surname from Bacqueville in northern France, later established in England by medieval landholders of that name.
The #8,734 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 82,223 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Baskerville is generally taken from a place-name, identified in older sources with Basqueville/Bacqueville in Normandy. The surname literally means “someone from Bacqueville,” with the final element -ville meaning a settlement or farm in Norman French place-names. Early writers also connected the family with a Norman knight styled Martel de Basqueville, showing how the place-name became a hereditary surname in England.
History
The name appears in medieval English records by the 13th and 14th centuries and was associated with landed families in several counties, especially Herefordshire and Shropshire. Later antiquarians traced a prominent Baskerville line to Norman origins and to a branch connected with Eardesley. The surname survives in England and beyond, and some later bearers adopted it as a literary or family name.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname dictionaries note that the name was once linked to the Normandy parish now called Bacqueville, which is still visible today on maps of northern France.
From the historical record
“1844. BASKERVILLE. The head of this family was at the battle of Hastings, (Tay- lor's Roman de Rou, p. 229.) He is stjded Martels de Basqueville (Tljid). The parish of Baskerville, now Bacqueville, is in the arrondissement of Dieppe. One of his descendants, who was butler to king Stephen, resumed the name of…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom