Bicknell
A location-based surname, most likely from a place in Somerset or Warwickshire called Bickenhall or Bickenhill.
The #9,592 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 91,102 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Bicknell is generally treated as a locational surname. The most likely sources given in the older dictionaries are Bickenhall in Somerset and Bickenhill in Warwickshire, with the surname formed from a place-name and later simplified in spelling. The place-name element is usually linked to an old personal name plus a topographic term, though the exact breakdown is not certain from these excerpts alone.
History
Nineteenth-century surname dictionaries repeatedly place Bicknell among local surnames and connect it with English place-names, especially Bickenhall and Bickenhill. The form appears in English records by the late Middle Ages and continues in parish and register material into the early modern period. Variant spellings such as Bicknall and Bignall show how fluid the name was before spelling standardized.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname handbooks sometimes cross-reference Bicknell with Bignall and Bignold, showing how easily clerks and compilers treated similar-looking local names as related.
From the historical record
“BICK LEY. A township in Chester. BICKNELL. Bickenhall, co. Somerset, or Bickenhill, co. Warwick, BICKTON. A manor in St. Eve, co. Cornwall, held by the family in Norman times. D. Gilb. Cornw. i. 412. BIDDEL. Perhaps Biddulpli ; perhaps beadle. BIDDER. A-Sax. biddere, a petitioner — " petitor, vel petax." Wright's…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom