Pennell
A surname of uncertain origin, most often treated as a variant of Paynell/Pannell, ultimately from the medieval personal name Payn or Pagan.
The #5,633 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 50,040 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Most authorities treat Pennell as a spelling variant of Paynell/Pannell, a surname built on the medieval given name Payn, itself from Old French and ultimately Latin Paganus. In that tradition, the name began as a personal name rather than a place-name, and later developed hereditary surname forms with shifting spellings. Some older writers also suggested a link with Petronilla, but that derivation is less commonly accepted and looks like a secondary speculation.
History
The name appears in several spellings in medieval and post-medieval records, including Pennell, Pinnell, and Pannell. Older surname books note both a personal-name origin and, less confidently, a possible connection with the female name Petronilla. Modern reference works usually group Pennell with the Payn/Paynell family of forms.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
19th-century surname writers disagreed about whether Pennell was tied to the old given name Payn or to Petronilla, showing how tricky medieval spelling history can be.
From the historical record
“Local : place unknown. PENNELL. Pennal, a parish in Meri- onethshire. PEN PENNEY. See Penny. PENNICK. See Penneck. PENNIGER. Certainly not the Latin 'pennicjcr, having wings ; but probably from”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom