Brill Family History

English: habitational name from Brill in Buckinghamshire named with the Celtic element bre- ‘hill’ + Old English hyll also ‘hill’. North German and Dutch: habitational name from any of various places in northwestern Germany and the Netherlands named Brill from Middle Low German brūl bröil ‘wet lowland’. Compare German Bruehl.

German: from Middle Low German brill ‘eyeglasses’ hence a metonymic occupational name for a maker of spectacles or perhaps a nickname for someone who wore them.

Jewish (Ashkenazic): acronymic surname from the first letters of Hebrew ben rabi ‘son of rabbi’ and of each part of a Yiddish double male personal name most likely Yude (Juda) Leyb.

Many Ashkenazic surnames beginning with Br- and Bar- are of acronymic origin but without detailed evidence from family histories it is impossible to specify the personal name from which each is derived.