Neill
An Irish and Scottish surname from the old Gaelic personal name Niall, often understood as meaning “champion.”
The #3,768 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 32,831 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Neill is a surname built on the Gaelic personal name Niall. Historical surname writers commonly connect Niall with a sense like “champion,” though the exact original meaning of the ancient name is not perfectly certain. In English and Scots records the name also appears in forms such as Neile and Nield, and it was sometimes Latinized as Nigellus in medieval sources.
History
The name is strongly associated with Ireland, especially through the famous dynastic name O'Neill, but it also has a long history in Scotland. Historical notes show that the same Gaelic root spread into Scandinavian and medieval English forms, which helped produce a wide range of spellings. In modern usage, Neill often appears both as an independent surname and in longer clan or family names such as MacNeill and O'Neill.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One 19th-century source notes that the name was borrowed into Norse as forms like Njdll and Njdl, showing how widely the old Gaelic personal name travelled.
From the historical record
“NEIL NEILE NEILL NEILDJ ■(Celt.) Champion [Ir. and Gael. Niall] This name was borrowed by the Scandi- navians as Njdll, Njdl, and Latinized in England as Nigellus.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)Notable people named Neill
- Lucas Neill (b. 1978)
- A. S. Neill (1883–1973)
Sourced from Wikidata; linked to their Wikipedia page.