This name derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century "cybbel" meaning a cudgel and was originally given as an occupational name to a maker or seller of cudgels, or perhaps as a nickname to one stout and heavy as a cudgel. The surname is first recorded towards the end of the 11th Century, (see below). In 1214 one, Salomon Kebbel appears in the "Pipe Rolls of Kent" and in 1273 a Reginald Kibel is recorded in "The Hundred Rolls of Lincolnshire". In the "modern" idiom, the name has eight spelling variations:- Keeble, Keable, Keb(b)ell, Keble, Kib(b)el and Kibble. In 1686 John, son of John Keeble, was christened in St. James', Clerkenwell and in 1806 Richard Keeble and Mary Whiting were married in St. George's, Hanover Square, London.The Coat of Arms granted to the family Keeble family of East Leach, county Gloucester has the blazon of a gold shield thereon a red chevron engrailed, on a black chief three silver mullets (knights spurs). The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Aeluric Chebbel, which was dated circa 1095, in the Feudal Documents from the Abbey of Bury, St. Edmunds, Suffolk, during the reign of King William 11, Nickname "Rufus" 1087 - 1100. 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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