Southwell Family History

English:: from Middle English south ‘south’ + wel(le) ‘well pool spring’ (Old English sūth + wella). The surname may be topographic for someone who lived ‘by the south well’ or ‘south of the well’ or habitational from a place so named such as Southwell (Nottinghamshire) or Southwell on the Isle of Portland (Dorset).

In Yorkshire and Lancashire, often a hypercorrect form of Soothill, a habitational name from Soothill in Dewsbury (Yorkshire) from Old English sōt ‘soot’ + hyll ‘hill’.