One Family - Many Branches

Where did the names come from?

PEAD

The surname is of early medieval English origin, and derives from a pet form of the male given name "Peter", with the "t" softened into a "d".

Peter itself is from the Greek "Petros", the masculine form of "petra", which is the Greek word for "rock". In the modern idiom the surname, with softened d, can be found as Pead, Peed, Peade and Peede.

BELL  

Scottish and northern English: from Middle English belle ‘bell’, in various applications; most probably a metonymic occupational name for a bell ringer or bell maker, or a topographic name for someone living ‘at the bell’ (as attested by 14th-century forms such as John atte Belle). This indicates either residence by an actual bell (e.g. a town’s bell in a bell tower, centrally placed to summon meetings, sound the alarm, etc.) or ‘at the sign of the bell’, i.e. a house or inn sign (although surnames derived from house and inn signs are rare in Scots and English). Scottish and northern English: from the medieval personal name Bel.

MILLS

English and Scottish: variant of Mill. English: either a metronymic form of Mill, or a variant of Miles. Irish: in Ulster this is the English name, but elsewhere in Ireland it may be a translation of a Gaelic topographic byname, an Mhuilinn ‘of the mill’.

HERITAGE  

Either someone who inherited land from an ancestor, or that it derives from the Old English word heretoga which originally meant a war leader, but by the time the surname evolved probably referred to a local community leader.

NEWSTEAD  

From the inhabited place from any of various places called Newstead, in particular the one in Nottinghamshire, which is named from Old English niwe ‘new’ + stede ‘monastic site’.

CHRISTIAN  

Vernacular form of Latin Christianus ‘follower of Christ’ (see Christ).