de Villier

Recorded in many forms including de Ville, de Villier, Darvel, Darvill, Darvell, Devil, Ville, Desvilles, and others, this is a famous French surname. It is habitational, and describes one who lived in the centre of a village, as opposed to the outskirts, or it is locational from any of the various places called Ville or Villier, or Villiers, found throughout the country. It was one of the most important surnames introduced into England at the time of the Norman Conquest of 1066, and at least four separate branches of the English nobility called Villiers trace their ancestry back to these invaders. These include the earls of Anglesey, Jersey, Clarendon and Grandison, and the sometimes infamous dukes of Buckingham. The name in England often underwent transposition to try to lose some of the obvious Frenchness, and this included the "fusion" of the preposition "de" between the 15th and 19th centuries when the two countries were often at war. Early examples of the surname recording include: Willam de Villers of Cheshire in the year 1130, and William de Villiers, given a being a Knight Templar in the rolls Yorkshire in 1185. Other later recordings from the surviving registers of the diocese of Greater London include: Elizabeth Darvil who married Richard Chadwick at West Drayton, on August 7th 1596, and Elizabeth Darvell, who married George Ball at St Martins in the Field, Westminster, on January 15th 1820. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.