Wyville

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small rural village in the county of Lincolnshire in eastern England ; a family name borne by people of English or Scottish descent
2. A hamlet located in Lincolnshire, a county in eastern England ; a surname carried by various individuals of English or Scottish origin
3. A village in the English county of Lincolnshire ; a last name shared by people with English or Scottish ancestry

Etymology: "Wyville" is best known as part of the name of Sir Charles Wyville Thomson (1830–1882), the Scottish naturalist who led the scientific staff of HMS Challenger on its expedition of 1872–1876. Before the voyage, many scientists believed the deep ocean floor was too cold, dark and pressured to support life. Dredging the abyss, Thomson's team brought up a rich variety of animals from thousands of metres down, overturning that assumption and founding modern deep-sea biology. A submarine ridge in the North Atlantic is also named after him. The name itself is a surname, and it is most likely derived from a place name. Wyville is a village in Lincolnshire, England, and surnames of this kind usually take their names from the places their bearers came from, though the exact origin of this particular family name is not something I can trace with confidence.