This interesting surname, with variant spellings Pool, Poole, Pole, Poles, Poll, Polle, etc., has two possible origins. Firstly, it may be a topographical surname for someone who lived near a pool or pond, deriving from the old English pre 7th Century "pol" meaning pool or pond. One, Roger de Pole, is recorded in the Pipe Rolls of Wiltshire (1191) and Walter atte Pulle appears in the 1259, Close Rolls of London. The second possibility is as an English variant of the Latin personal name "Paulus" or "Paul" meaning small. The name has always been popular in Christendom, being the name adopted by the Pharisee Saul of Tarsus after his conversion to Christianity on the road to Damascus (34 A.D.). One, William Pol, is noted in the Kalendar of Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk (1188) and William Polle, appears in the Pipe Rolls of Leicestershire in 1193. On November 25th 1559, Caterina Pull was christened at St. Andrew's, Enfield, London and the marriage of John Pull and Hannah Pratt took place on January 30th 1654, in St. Peter Paul's Wharf, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Mauritius de la Pole, which was dated 1176, The Pipe Rolls of Devonshire, during the reign of King Henry 11, "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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