Origin of the Name Fennell
The ancient history of the name
Fennell was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives.
Over the centuries Surnames developed a wide number of variants. Different spellings of the same name can be traced back to an original root. Additionally when a bearer of a name emigrated it was not uncommon that their original name would be incorrectly transcribed in the record books at their new location. Surnames were also often altered over the years based on how they sounded phonetically and depending on the prevailing political conditions it may have been advantageous to change a name from one language to another.
Variants of the name Fennell
include O'Fennelly, Fennelly, Hennelly, Vennell, Vennall and Venel. This name in Irish is O'Fionnghail and the latter variants are the anglicized forms of the name. This sept is from Ormond.
A sept or clan is a collective term describing a group of persons whose immediate ancestors bore a common surname and inhabited the same territory. Irish septs and clans that are related often belong to even larger groups, sometimes called tribes.
Bearers of the name have been on record since the fourteenth century and appear in the Ormond Deeds in the year 1324 as Fynnel and Fenell. In the seventeenth century the name is recorded as one of the principal Irish names in King's County and at this time a Dr. Gerald Fennell is recorded as taking a lease of Athassal, County Tipperary in 1634. The name Hennelly is a variant of Fennelly and this form has been found in County Mayo for many centuries.
The Fennell coat of arms came into existence centuries ago. The process of creating coats of arms (also often called family crests) began in the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this. The new art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own coat of arms, including all Fennell descendants.