This ancient Scottish name is locational in origin, deriving from either of two places named Pittilloch, one near Freuchie in Fife and the other in Glenfarg, Perthshire. Both places are named with the ancient Pictish (pre 5th Century) element "peit", portion of land, with the Gaelic term "tulach", hill. The surname is well recorded in Scotland from the 13th Century on, most early forms remaining close to the placename; the Ade de Petillok recorded below appears as an assizer at Perth in 1305 as Adam de Pethilloch. One Robert Pittilloch, a Dundee man, raised recruits for the French service in the neighbourhood of Dundee in 1423 - 1424. He accompanied them to France, and was made a commander in the French service, later being created lord of Sauveterre, and known as "le petit roi de Gascoyne". As Robert Petillo he was one of King James 11 of Scotland's ambassadors. The modern surname can be found as Pat(t)ullo and Pat(t)illo. The marriage of John Pattullo and Janet Halket was recorded in Edinburgh on June 13th 1773. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Ade de Petillok, which was dated 1295, Register of the Monastery of Cambuskenneth, during the reign of John Balliol, King of Scotland, 1292 - 1296. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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