This surname is derived from a nickname. 'the porcel.' Middle English pork, Old French port, a pork, a hog; diminutive porcell, a young pig. 'Porcellys, young pigs' (Halliwell). compare Pigg, Grice, Hogg, Bacon; also the diminutive Porchet (Old French porquet; English porket).

Reyner Porchet, Salop, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Edward Porcel, Buckinghamshire, ibid.

Roger Porcel, Salop, ibid.

Agnes Purcel, Oxfordshire, ibid.

John Purcel, 1313. Writs of Parliament.

1633. Baptised — Sara, d. Joseph Purcell: St. James, Clerkenwell.

1634. Anne, d. Joseph Pursell: ibid.

This name with its variants is very familiar to the United States. It went out with the Pilgrim Fathers.

1635. William Pursell, for Virginia (aged 26): Hotten's Lists of Emigrants.

Will Pursell was pledge for Wille Broun in Lanark, 1490 (Lanark, p. 6). Alexander Pursell in Cousland, 1566 (RPC., I, p. 444). John Pursill or Pursell in Lessudden, 1664 (RRM., II, p. 85, 87), and John Pursell in Melrose, 1692 (ibid., III, p. 115). Pursel 1733. Explained by Lower, Bardsley, and Harrison as a nickname from the young pig, Old French, purcell, porcel(l, diminutive of Old French porc, Latin porcus.

A Norman name of great antiquity. As it is not found prefixed by the territorial De, I think it must be referred to a class of sobriquets very prevalent among the early Normans, and that it means Latin: 'parceling,' Old French, porcel-a little pig. A Frenchman in our days considers ' cochon ' the most opprobrious of designations; but it was far otherwise in ancient times, as witness the ' pigs ' and ' old sows ' (Porci and Scrofae), eminent family names among the Romans; the French Legryce, Legriel, &c.; and our own indigenous Hogg, Bigg, Littlehog, Wildbore, &c. The arms of the various branches of the family have boars' heads, allusive to the name. Comp. Lovel from Lupus. The Purcells came into England at the Conquest, and there is a tradition of their descent from one Hugh, "the first of the followers of the Bastard Duke to set foot on the shore of Bevensey." This personage obtained some manors in Sussex, and a Geoffrey Porcellus, of Surrey, is mentioned in a Pipe Boll of 1131. The family were planted in Ireland by Sir Hugh Purcell, who took part in the subjugation of that country in the reign of Henry II., and married Beatrix, daughter of the celebrated Theobald Butler. "This name," says Mr. D'Alton, "was early introduced into Munster, where it soon became so numerous that the rolls of licenses for protection and pardon in the year 1310, (in prudence then necessitated), included no less than thirteen adult Purcells; while eight years previously, Hugh, Philip, Maurice, and Adam Purcell were of the Irish magnates summoned to the Scottish war In the reign of Elizabeth and James, the Purcells were seized of many castles and manors in Kilkenny."

Purssell is one of the oldest of Bucks names. From 1350 to 1373, Robert de Pursele owned property in Warmston and Haddenham; and in the early part of the following century a family of Pursel or Purcel held property in Bierton. In 1606 there was a John Pursell in Oving, and in 1634 there was a Roger Pursell in Padbury (Lips.). Edward Purcell was mayor of Buckingham in 1687 and 1697 (W.). During the early part of last century several of the name of Pursell or Purcell were buried in Burnham Church, including the family of Richard Pursell, gent (Lips.).