The history of the Angles name began with the ancient Anglo-Saxon tribes of Britain. The name is derived from the Old English personal name Angel, which is derived from the Latin Angelus and the Greek Angelos, which means a messenger. The personal name also appeared in the feminine forms of Angela and Angelina. [1]
The name is denoted for "one who acted as a religious messenger or as a messenger from God; a nickname for an angelic person; descendant of Angel, a man's name in England." [2]
The surname Angles was first found in Lancashire where they held a family seat from very early times, some say before the Norman Conquest of England by Duke William in 1066 A.D. It is likely that this name originated in one of the conquering families of Angles who settled in Lancashire after the conquest of the Strathclyde Britons. The name was written in early records as Anglicus, but the name was carried from England to France as D'Anglars.
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Angles research. Another 55 words (4 lines of text) covering the years 1555, 1655, 1610, 1618, 1694 and 1636 are included under the topic Early Angles History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Sound was what guided spelling in the essentially pre-literate Middle Ages, so one person's name was often recorded under several variations during a single lifetime. Also, before the advent of the printing press and the first dictionaries, the English language was not standardized. Therefore, spelling variations were common, even among the names of the most literate people. Known variations of the Angles family name include Angell, Angel, Angle, Anegall, Anegal, Anegoll and others.
Distinguished members of the family include John Angel (fl. 1555), Chaplain to King Philip and Queen Mary, is said to have been a 'person of singular zeal and learning.'
John Angel or Angell (d. 1655), was 'a Gloucestershire man,' born towards the end of the sixteenth century. "He was admitted to Magdalen Hall, Oxford in 1610 and was ordained in holy orders; at...
Another 63 words (4 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Angles Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
In France, the name Angles is the 5,827th most popular surname with an estimated 1,000 - 1,500 people with that name. [3]
For political, religious, and economic reasons, thousands of English families boarded ships for Ireland, the Canadas, the America colonies, and many of smaller tropical colonies in the hope of finding better lives abroad. Although the passage on the cramped, dank ships caused many to arrive in the New World diseased and starving, those families that survived the trip often went on to make valuable contributions to those new societies to which they arrived. Early immigrants bearing the Angles surname or a spelling variation of the name include :