This unusual and interesting surname, recorded in English Church Registers from the mid 16th Century under the variant spellings Tagill, Tagell, Tagle and Toghill, is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name either from Tog Hill (Toghill) east of Bristol in Gloucestershire, or from some minor, unrecorded, or now "lost" place believed to have been situated in Essex because of the high incidence of early surname recordings from that country. Tog Hill in Gloucestershire is thought to have been so called from the Olde English pre 7th Century personal name "Tocga", with "hyll", hill, which may also form the component elements of a place called Tagill or Tagell in Essex; however, the Olde English "taegl", tail, used in a transferred topographical sense for a piece of land jutting out from a larger piece, may be the sole naming element of Tagill, Tagell. On October 5th 1572, Edward Tagell and Agnes Collen were married at Willingale Doe, Essex, and on January 8th 1582, Henry Todgill married Mergery Snypp at Cranbrook, Kent. On September 3rd 1584, the marriage of Thomasine Tadgell to George Mainard took place at Chigwell, Essex, and on January 6th 1613, William, son of Mathew Tadgell, was christened at St. Botolph without Aldgate, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Edward Tagill, which was dated September 10th 1546, marriage to Catherine Stokes, at Fyfield, Essex, during the reign of King Henry V111, known as "Bluff King Hal", 1509 - 1547. 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.