Atwell

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A family name of English origin that has been carried by various people over the centuries
2. A surname of English origin, shared by many individuals across generations and countries
3. A hereditary family name of English origin, passed down through the generations of a household

Etymology: "Atwell" is a surname, and it began as a description of where someone lived: a person who lived near a well. The "at" is the old preposition meaning "by" or "near," and "well" is the ordinary English word for a spring or water source dug into the ground. Much of the English surname stock came about this way, with families named for a feature of the landscape they settled beside, so a well was as useful a landmark as a hill, ford, or oak. Because the name developed from a common phrase rather than from a single coined term, it has no single moment of invention to point to. Over the centuries the original descriptive sense faded, and the word now functions mainly as a family name rather than as a phrase anyone would read as "by the well."