Shellito Family History

English: perhaps a nickname from an unrecorded Middle English shelli shilli ‘shelly scaly’ + to ‘toe’ an expression suggesting a fungal infection of the foot. A document of c. 1400 refers to ‘schellis that cometh of brennyng that is in the skyn’ i.e. ‘shells (scales) that come from a burning in the skin’.

The expression forming this name must be the source of the modern shelly toe a footrot-like disease of sheep characterized by ‘outer layers of horn separating on the outside of the toe’. Perhaps this sense is old enough though the term is unrecorded to be the actual source of the name being used to describe similar conditions in animals and humans or to make a joking comparison.