Beagle Family History

Americanized form of German Bechtel or of its very rare variant Bächtel (see Bachtel). Americanized form of German and Swiss German Büchel (see Buechel) or of its Bavarian variant Büchl.

English: habitational name from Beal in Kellington Yorkshire which is recorded as Begale in 1086, Beghale in the 13th century. The place is named with either an unattested personal name Bēaga or Old English bēag ‘ring; circle; (topographically) a bend in a river’ + halh ‘nook of land’.

The Yorkshire placename may refer to a nook on a bend in the River Aire.