Pell
A name that can mean either “by the pool” or descend from a short medieval personal name like Pella.
The #7,520 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 69,789 Americans shares it.
Etymology
English Pell has more than one plausible source. One explanation links it to Old English or dialect words for a pool or deep standing water, making it a topographic surname for someone living near such a place. Another connects it with an old personal name, Pella or Palla, so that some bearers may descend from a patronymic or nickname form. The evidence in early surname studies leans toward both possibilities rather than a single origin for every family.
History
The surname is recorded in medieval and early modern English sources, especially in the south of England. Nineteenth-century surname writers also noted place-based examples and suggested that some lines may come from a personal name rather than a location. Because the form is short and common-looking, different families may have unrelated origins.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Early surname scholars sometimes glossed Pell simply as “a deep standing water,” showing how directly local landscape could shape English surnames.
From the historical record
“hide, skin] PELL 1 (Eng.) I descendants of the A.-Sax. PELLE J pers. name Pella or Palla [cp; O.E. pell, pcell (M.E. pell(e, pall(,e), a pallium ' ' (Lat.] 2 Dweller at a Pell, Pill, or Pool [Dial. E. pell, pill, are weak forms of pool V —O.E. pdl, -pul]”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)