Stonnell

This very unusual surname is not apparently recorded in England or Britain as a whole, before the early 19th Century. It first appears in 1805, the year of the Battle of Trafalgar and also the high point of the Napoleonic Conquests. This latter fact may be very significant, as the name is almost certainly of 'Baltic' region origin and is probably an 'Anglicized' development of the Scandinavian 'Strom', itself a developed form of the Old Norse 'Straumer' a habitational name like 'Brook' for one who lived by a stream or river. The suffix 'ell' would suggest a diminutive 'son of' but it is more likely to be a dialectal transposition of a compound name such as 'Stromfelt'. This translates as one who lives on the ploughed lands by the river. The latter is heraldic and therefore of noble origins and of likely 'refugee' status. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Sarah Stronell, which was dated February 25th 1805, married Thomas Howard at Amersham, Buckinghamshire, during the reign of King George 111, 'Farmer George', 1760 - 1820. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.