Derived from the Olde English pre 7th Century 'Bile' meaning a bill or beak or a bird, the name can be either topographical for one who lived on the top of a hill or a nickname for somebody with prominent features! The name is early as a surname, and clearly the name was highly regarded as it appears in the early Knight Templer (crusader) Rolls. The plural form is a medieval metonymic translating as 'son of Bile', the name recordings include Alice Byll christened in London on January 30th 1567 whilst Anne Bile married George Watsun in 1588, and in 1794 Catherine Biles married Michael Frechaut at St. Matthews, Bethnal Green. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Nicholas Bile, which was dated 1185, in the Templer Roll of Gloucester, during the reign of King Henry 11, known as the Church Builder, 1159 - 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.