Brignell

Recorded in various pellings including Brignall, Brignell, Bricknall and Bricknell, this is an English Surname. It is locational from a place called Brignall, a village given as being in the North Riding of Yorkshire. The place name is first recorded in the famous Domesday Book of 1086 in the spelling of 'Bringenhale', which the Dictionary of English place names suggests without conviction, means the place of the Bryni people. A more likely explanation is from the Olde English pre 7th century word 'brik' meaning bright and 'halh', a place, the bright place, a place which is open to the skies, rather than in woodland. What is certain is that the surname is a very early example with Thomas de Briggenhale appearing in the Poll Tax rolls for the county of Yorkshire in 1379. Other examples taken from the surviving registers of the city of London include: Hester Brignell who married George Ogleby at St James Clerkenwell in 1664, Nicholas Bricknell, whose son Thomas was christened at the same church in 1675, and Winifred Bricknall who married Richard Heard at St Georges chapel, Hanover Square, Westminster, in 1774.