Kittle
A surname most likely from Kettle, an old nickname or baptismal form that produced several spelling variants.
The #7,791 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 72,595 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Kittle is treated in older surname dictionaries as a variant of Kettle, likely a patronymic or derivative form built from the medieval personal name Kettle/Ketel. That name itself has been connected with older short forms such as Ketel, Ketyl, and related spellings. The literal sense is not fully certain, but the surname is generally explained through this older name group rather than from the modern English word "kettle".
History
The name appears in historical records in several spellings, and nineteenth-century surname writers grouped Kittle with Kettle and related forms. It is found in English records by at least the early 1500s, showing that the surname had already settled into family use by the Tudor period. Modern bearers are relatively uncommon in the United States, with the name surviving as a minor variant alongside Kettle, Kettlewell, Kittell, and similar forms.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older sources note that Kittle was sometimes treated simply as a spelling variant of Kettle, rather than as a separate surname in its own right.
From the historical record
“Kytlermaster, 1568; Kittermaster, 1CA9. KITTLE. See Kettle. KITTO. The late Dr. Kitto, the cele- brated biblical illustrator, gives the follow- ing amusing, if not very couvinciug, ac- count of the origin of his name : — "I find myself much in the habit of en- deavouring to make out the etymology of most of the…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom