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Origin / History of the Bignal Name

A locational surname that derives from a contracted form of either of the places named Bickenhall in Somerset, or Bickenhill in Warwickshire, Bide is of Anglo-Saxon origin.  Recorded in Somerset in the Domesday Book of 1086 as ‘Bichehalle’, and as ‘Bikenhal’ in the 1243 Assize Court Rolls of Somerset, both forms mean ‘Bica's or Bicca's hall’, or ‘hill’, derived from the Olde English personal name ‘Bic(c)a’, from ‘becca’, meaning pickaxe or mattock, with either ‘hyll’, meaning hill, or ‘heall’, meaning hall.  The place in Warwickshire is recorded as ‘Bichehelle’ in the Domesday Book, and as ‘Bykenhull’ in 1220, and means ‘Bic(c)a's hill’, and derived from the same Olde English elements as the place in Somerset.  The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Thomas de Bikenhulle, in the ‘Curia Regis Rolls of Warwickshire’, in 1214.  Recordings of the name have also been found in early London Church Registers: the marriage of Thomas Bignell and Marie Hide at St. Gregory by St. Paul, 1610; and the christening of Joseph, son of Robert Bignell, 1636, at St. Mary Whitechapel, Stepney.  The modern surname can be found recorded as Bicknell, Bignell, Bignall and Bignold.  

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