Correll
Likely a shortened or altered form of a name from Karl/Carl, though the exact pathway is uncertain.
The #5,297 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 46,943 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Correll is probably related to the personal name Karl/Carl, meaning “man” or “free man,” through a shortened, altered, or regional form. Early surname writers also linked it with forms such as Curl and Kerling, suggesting a family of related nicknames or diminutive spellings rather than one fixed spelling. Because the historical references are brief and somewhat speculative, the exact route from the root name to Correll is not certain.
History
Nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century surname scholars treated Correll as a variant found in Germanic and Anglo-American contexts, and some proposed it as a corruption or diminutive of Karl/Carl. The name appears in U.S. records as an established surname, but the old references do not provide a single definitive origin story. Modern bearers in the United States likely descend from several small, possibly unrelated lines that converged on the same spelling.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One older onomastic note specifically glosses Correll alongside forms like Curl and Kerling, showing how fluid surname spellings could be in nineteenth-century scholarship.
From the historical record
“Curl. A.S. Ceorl ; D. Curjel ; S. Correll; Dch. Kurrell; p.n. (a free man) Curling. N. Karl, Kerling ; G. Kerling ; p.n. See Curl”
— British Family Names: their origin and meaning (2nd ed.)