This name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is locational from a place in Suffolk called Aspall, recorded as "Aspala" in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century "aesp" meaning "aspen", plus "halh", a nook or remote valley. Hence, "the halh overgrown with Aspens." The surname is first recorded in the early half of the 14th Century, (see below). The following quotation from "The History of Norfolk" by Blomefield and Parkin reads "She gave her manors of Stonhall and Aspal, in Suffolk, which came by her mother daughter and Co-heir of Sir John de Aspal", (1385). On November 5th 1770, Edward Aspell and Mary Saanaar were married in Christchurch, Spitalfields, Stepney, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Robert de (of) Aspale, which was dated 1323, in the "Pipe Rolls of Norfolk", during the reign of King Edward 11, known as "Edward of Caernafon", 1307 - 1327. 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.