FOXALL
Foxall is a surname of English origin that derives from the Old English words fox, meaning the animal, and halh, meaning a nook or recess. The combination suggests a locational name for someone who lived near a fox’s den or a place associated with foxes.
The surname appears in a number of spellings, including Foxhall, Foxall and Foxehole. No extant place marker in England bears the name Fox Hall, although there are a number of similarly named sites in Ireland that do not seem to have given rise to the name. This absence has led scholars to consider that the name either refers to one of several places called Fox Hill scattered across England, to a medieval settlement that has since disappeared, or more plausibly to a locality in London known as Vauxhall.
The area now called Vauxhall was recorded in 1279 as Faulkshale, a form that supports the theory that the surname arose from this district. The etymology of Vauxhall is “the house of Folk”, a personal name of Germanic origin. In medieval records letters such as v and f and b and p were often interchangeable; for example, the word fen in the north of England appears as ven or venn in the south and south‑west, and the surname Vaux occurs as Foulkes, Faux or Fawkes in different parts of the country.
Early documentary evidence shows that the surname was well established in the London area from at least the sixteenth century. Authentic surviving church registers record a John Foxhall at St. Brides church on Fleet Street, London, on 6 January 1599; a George Foxall at the same church on 3 July 1614; and a George Foxhole at St. Dunstans in Stepney in the East on 22 March 1761.
Despite the strong evidence of the surname’s usage in London, there are no contemporary records of the surname Vauxhall itself. The persistence of the Foxall spelling in parish documents confirms that the name was primarily recorded in its own distinct form throughout the centuries.
In addition to its locational derivation, the surname may have also served as a nickname for an individual exhibiting fox‑like characteristics or behaviour, a common practice in medieval onomastics when a personal trait could become an identified surname.
Typical given names associated with the Foxall surname
Male
- Andrew
- Christopher
- Colin
- David
- Dennis
- Edward
- Howard
- John
- Mark
- Michael
- Paul
- Stephen
- Thomas
- William
Female
- Claire
- Emma
- Gillian
- Iris
- Julie
- Karen
- Kerry
- Margaret
- Melanie
- Nicola
- Rebecca
- Sarah
- Susan
Similar and related surnames
Related and similar names are generated algorithmically based on the spelling, and may not necessarily share an etymology.
How to communicate the surname Foxall in...
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Morse
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There are approximately 1,848 people named Foxall in the UK. That makes it roughly the 4,489th most common surname in Britain. Around 28 in a million people in Britain are named Foxall.
Famous people named Foxall
- Frank Foxall - Professional football player (1883 to 1)
- Stan Foxall - Football player (1914 to 1991)
Names and descriptions courtesy of Wikipedia, and may contain errors. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every famous person with this name.