A Welsh surname from the personal name Hywel  which means ‘eminent’. It has been popular since the Middle Ages, in particular in honor of the great 10th century law-giving Welsh king.
The English form refers to a place in Lincolnshire, so named from an Old English word  hugol  which means ‘mound’ or ‘hillock’. There is also hune  which means ‘hoarhound’.

Other spellings include for Howell are Hoel, Howel and Hugh.

English counties with Howell surnames are Lancashire, Yorkshire, Norfolk, Somerset and Sussex. The highest numbers are in the Glamorgan county in Wales. In Scotland many Howell families live in Lanarkshire county.

In the United States most with the Howell surname live in New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Texas, California and Georgia.

Nearly half of the Howell families in the 1880s were farmers.

Famous: William Roe Howell (1870s New York City photographer), Mark Howell (American musician), Ken Howell (professional baseball player), Hannah Howell (American romance novelist), C. Thomas Howell (actor), Dixie Howell (professional baseball pitcher), Thomas B. Howell (English lawyer and writer whose name was applied to the Howell's State Trials in the early 19th century) and Abner Howell (served as a captain in the American Revolutionary War).