Ernle

Ernle was the surname of an English gentry or landed family descended from the lords of the manor of Earnley in Sussex who derived their surname from the name of the place where their estates lay.

Origins

Onomastic

Onomasticians say that the surname's origin, in being drawn from the name of a manor, is topographical in nature, and identical with the place name's origins. As such, it is derived from an Old English compound name composed of earn meaning eagle combined with leah meaning wood. The name's meaning is interpreted as signifying a place to which eagles resort.

The earliest forms noted are Earneleach, Earnaleagh, Earnelegh found in a document dated 780 during the reign of Oslac, duke of the South Saxons. A later form, Earneleia, derives from a charter of England's King Aethelstan dated 930. Other English place names deriving from the same two words are thought to include Earley, Berkshire and Areley Kings (otherwise Areley-on-Severn), formerly called Ernley, Worcestershire. The latter place is connected with Layamon, poet and historian, one of the earliest writers in the English tongue (The Beginnings of English Literature, C.M. Lewis, 1900, p. 66):