Still
An English surname that likely began as a nickname for a calm, quiet person, though in some cases it may come from an old personal name.
The #2,904 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 24,992 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The most straightforward explanation is from Middle English and Old English stille, meaning “quiet,” “silent,” or “gentle.” In that sense, it would have started as a descriptive nickname for someone known for a calm manner. Some early writers also treated Still as a survival of an old personal name rather than a pure nickname, so the surname may have more than one historical source.
History
Harrison explicitly glossed Still as “silent, quiet, gentle,” while Lower noted an early Domesday-era bearer and suggested it may have been a personal or baptismal name. The surname is established in medieval English records, and related forms such as Stile, Stiles, and Stillman appear in the same surname family group. Today it is most familiar as an English surname, though it is not especially common.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The surname can also be connected with a cluster of similar English names built on Stile/Style, which older surname writers often treated together because their histories overlap.
From the historical record
“STILES, pi., and genit., of Stile, q.v. STILL (Eng.) i Silent, Quiet, Gentle [M.E. O.E. stille] Walter StiWe.—Hund. Rolls. (occ.) 2 a weak form of Steel, q.v. STILLINGFLEET (Eng.) Bel. to Stilling- fleet (Yorks), i4tncent. Stilyngflete, Domes- day Steflingeflet, A.-Sax. *Stifelinga-fliot= the Stream of the Stifel…”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)