Gosnell Family History
Gosnell Surname Meaning
English: perhaps a habitational name from Goss Hall in Ash, Kent, recorded as Gosehale in 1210–12 and as Gosenhale (in a surname) in 1230. It may have denoted ‘Gosa's nook of land’ (Old English Gōsa genitive singular Gōsan + halh dative singular hale). By the early 1200s, a member of this Kent family had apparently acquired property in Fritton, Suffolk, where the surname subsequently ramified in the later medieval and early modern periods.
Apparently a habitational name from Gonsal in Condover, Shropshire, but the place name is recorded in medieval documents only as a manorial surname (de Gosenhull), and it is possible that the place was named after a 13th-century owner who came from elsewhere. On heraldic grounds, the Shrops family has been tentatively identified with the Suffolk/Kent family in the previous discussion.
The early spellings of the Shrops name, however, consistently point to a derivation from Old English hyll ‘hill’, thus ‘Gosa's hill’, not ‘Gosa's nook of land’. While the possibility cannot be ruled out that Gosenhull was a local re-interpretation of Gosenhale, the linguistic and the heraldic evidence are not easily reconciled.
A nickname from Middle English gos + nol ‘goose head’ or ‘goose neck’, perhaps either for someone with the intelligence of a goose or someone with a stubborn personality. Compare Gosnold.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022