Hamel Family History

English, Scottish, and Irish (Louth): variant of Hamill. French: topographic name for someone who lived and worked at an outlying farm dependent on the main village, Old French hamel (a diminutive from an ancient Germanic element cognate with Old English hām ‘homestead’); or a habitational name from (Le) Hamel, the name of several places in the northern part of France named with this word.

Compare Duhamel and also Amell. German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): habitational name from the city of Hamlin, German Hameln, Yiddish Haml, where the Hamel river empties into the Weser.

The name of the river probably derives from the ancient Germanic element ham ‘water meadow’. Dutch: metonymic occupational name for a shepherd from Middle Dutch hamel ‘wether, castrated ram’.