Lyell is a surname

Surname

A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases, a surname is a family name. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name"...

 of Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 traced to Radulphus de Insula, 11th-century Lord of Duchal

Kilmacolm

Kilmacolm is a village and civil parish in the Inverclyde council area and the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It lies on the northern slope of the Gryffe Valley south-east of Greenock and around west of the city of Glasgow...

. "De insula" was subsequently translated into the Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

 "de l'isle" and developed into a number of variants ([de] Lyell; [de] Lisle; [de] Lyle; see below). John Lyell in 1706 emigrated to Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

 and is the progenitor of the American Lyells.

"Lyell" may refer to:

• Charles Lyell (botanist) (1767–1849), Scottish botanist
• Charles Lyell
  Charles Lyell
  Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
  
  , 1st Baronet (1797–1875), Scottish lawyer, geologist, and populariser of uniformitarianism, son of the botanist
• Leonard Lyell, 1st Baron Lyell
  Leonard Lyell, 1st Baron Lyell
  Leonard Lyell, 1st Baron Lyell Bt was a Scottish Liberal politician.The eldest son of Colonel Henry Lyell and Katherine Horner, he was a nephew of Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, the geologist....
  
   (1850–1926), Scottish Liberal politician and nephew of the geologist
• Charles Henry Lyell
  Charles Henry Lyell
  The Hon. Charles Henry Lyell was a British politician and Liberal Member of Parliament who died in the First World War.He was born in 1875, the only son of Leonard Lyell, and was educated at Eton and New College, Oxford...
  
   (1875–1918), Liberal MP, son of Leonard
• Charles Anthony Lyell, 2nd Baron Lyell
  Charles Anthony Lyell, 2nd Baron Lyell
  Charles Antony Lyell, 2nd Baron Lyell VC was a British recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces....
  
   (1913–1943), Victoria Cross recipient, son of Charles Henry
• Charles Lyell, 3rd Baron Lyell
  Charles Lyell, 3rd Baron Lyell
  Charles Lyell, 3rd Baron Lyell is a British politician and Conservative member of the House of Lords.Lord Lyell is the son of Charles Anthony Lyell, 2nd Baron Lyell and Sophie Mary Trafford. He succeeded to the peerage in 1943 at the age of 4 when his father was killed in action during the Second...
  
   (1939–), Conservative member of the House of Lords, son of Charles Anthony
• Nicholas Lyell, Baron Lyell of Markyate (1938–2010), British Conservative politician at the centre of the Matrix Churchill affair
• Lyell Island
  Lyell Island
  Lyell Island, known also in the Haida language as Athili Gwaii, is a large island in the Queen Charlotte Islands archipelago on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada. The island is a part of the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site and had been the focus of anti-logging...
  
  , in Canada
• Lyell, New Zealand
  Lyell, New Zealand
  Lyell is the site of a historic gold mining town in the Buller Gorge in the South Island of New Zealand. It lies on State Highway 6The location is now a campsite maintained by the Department of Conservation. None of the original buildings remain but a track from the campsite leads to a cemetery and...
  
  , a historic gold mining settlement
• A panorama of Victoria Crater, Mars, taken by the Opportunity Rover
• Lyells, Virginia
  Lyells, Virginia
  Lyells is an unincorporated community in Richmond County, in the U.S. state of Virginia.-Reference:...
  
  , a crossroads in Richmond County, Virginia

See also

• Delisle (disambiguation)
• Lisle (disambiguation)
• Lyle (disambiguation)