Fennell Family History

English: metonymic occupational name for a grower or seller of fennel from Middle English fenel finel finol ‘fennel’ (Old English finugl from Late Latin fenuculum). Fennel was widely used in the Middle Ages for its medicinal and culinary uses.

The surname may also have been a topographic name for someone who lived near a place where the herb grew or was grown, such as the lost place in or near Litlington and Wilmington (Kent) known only from the early surname forms.

Irish: shortened Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Fionnghail ‘descendant of Fionnghal’, a personal name composed of the elements fionn ‘fair, white’ + gal ‘valor’.