Wells

How to say it

/wɛlz/

What it means

An English surname for someone who lived beside a spring or well, from Old English wella.

Wells is an English locational surname for a person who lived near springs or wells, from Old English wella, and the name of a small cathedral city in Somerset. As a first name it is recent, joining the crisp one-syllable surname set with Brooks and Banks, and it carries a faint literary echo of author H.G. Wells. Clean, modern, and a little understated.

Heads-up notes

• Spelling

  A 'lived by the springs' surname; fits the one-syllable surname-first trend.

Who's worn it

Historical figures, characters, and public faces who share the name. The cultural surface, for whatever weight you want to give it.

• H.G. Wells English author of The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds (as a surname)

Spelling variants

• Welles
• Wills

Names with the same feeling

• Brooks Of the brook
• Banks By the riverbank or slope
• Hayes From the hedged enclosure
• Knox Round hill
• Beckett Bee cottage, or 'small stream'

See Wells from another angle