What does the name “Lowell mean”?

See the listing at “behindthename.com”– a site I highly recommend because it takes a lot more care than typical ‘baby name’ books and sites, which can be very inconsistent and reliable.

http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=lowell

But here’s a little more about how the name came to be, and its ‘pieces’. (behindthenames often provides this sort of thing; baby name sources typically do not.)

“Lowell” is a variant of the English name Lovell, originally from a Norman French surname. The form is a nickname – “louv”, meaning “wolf”, “louvel(l)” meaning “small (baby) wolf; wolf-cub”.

http://www.blurtit.com/q177523.html

“Louve” and “Loup” (the modern French form) go back to the Latin word for wolf – “LUPus”.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wolf

The ending (-el) is a diminutive form, that is, if refers to a SMALL version of the root word. (Diminutives are used in various ways, including to insult someone [e.g., “princeling”] or as an affectionate term.)

This is the same ending we find in “damsel” (a diminutive of “dame”)and is related to -ling (‘duckling’ = ‘little duck’) and German -lein (“Frauelein” -‘young lady, Miss’ based on “Frau” for “woman, wife, Mrs.”).

Compare also -let/lette (e.g., bracelet), which combines two French diminutives (-el and -et(te)).

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More more on diminutives, with examples (esp. English ones) see:

http://www.teflteachthai.com/Dispelling_Confusion.html

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-DIMINUTIVE.html

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=-ling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive#English

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Modern surnames are a medieval (post 1000) invention. If you are interested in the origins of the family(ies) that carried this name, you’ll need to do a bit of surname and family genealogy research. The earliest instance I can find of the surname Lowell (in this case, spelt “Lowle”) is from the 13th century http://www.lowell.to/lowellgen/gentext.html

Meaning: Wolf

Origin: English

Categories: Surnames, British, English

Pronunciation: (LOW el)