Russell (surname)


Russell is a surname, also with spellings Rosel, Rousel, Roussel, Russel or Rossell. The origin of the name has historically been subject to disagreement, with two distinct origins proposed. Early genealogists traced the Russel/Russell family of Kingston Russel from Anglo-Norman landholders bearing the toponymic surname 'de Rosel' or 'du Rozel', deriving from Rosel, Calvados, Normandy. However, J. Horace Round observed that these flawed pedigrees erroneously linked toponymic-bearing men with unrelated men who instead bore the Anglo-Norman nickname rusel, given to men with red hair. This nickname was a diminutive of the Norman-French rus, meaning 'red', and was also an archaic name for the red fox, which in turn borrowed from Old Norse rossel, "red-haired", from Old Norse ros "red hair color" and the suffix -el. Round concluded "there is no reason to suppose that the surname Russell was territorial at all," and surname dictionaries have preferred to derive the surname from the nickname. Dictionaries also state that the English name Rufus originally meant "red haired".
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