Not, as may be thought, a nickname for one who enjoyed a glass too many, this ancient surname has 12th Century Crusader origins (see below), and is one of the earliest of all names. The derivation is the Anglo-Saxon "Teobald", translating as "the brave people", and perhaps not surprisingly, has many forms including: Tebbit, Tibbatts and Tidball. The modern baptismal name form is "Theobald", of which the original short (nickname) form was "Tebb" - "Tipp" being a derived variant. The suffix "-ell" is itself a short form of "little", to give "little Tipp", or more probably "son of Tipp". The medieval period was a time of change, and the development of the surname form (no surnames existed before 1066), coincided with an equal development of baptismal names. The early recordings include: Edmundus Tipel in the 1275 Hundred Rolls of Norfolk; John Typull in the Suffolk Rolls of 1524; whilst Edmund Tipall, Robert Tiple and Robert Tippell, are all recorded in the Heart Tax Lists for Suffolk in 1674. Other recordings include: Arabella Tippell, christened at St. Andrew's Church, Holborn, London, on October 18th 1752, whilst on February 28th 1859, Benjamin Tippell married Jane Gibson at St. Pancras Old Church, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Albreda Tepple, which was dated 1185, in the "Knight Templar (Crusader) Rolls of Warwickshire", during the reign of King Henry 11, known as "The Builder of Churches", 1154 - 1189. 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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