Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from Brill in Buckinghamshire, named with the Celtic element bre- ‘hill’ + Old English hyll also ‘hill’.
- North German and Dutch : habitational name from any of various places in northwestern Germany and the Netherlands named Brill, from Middle Low German brūl, bröil ‘wet lowland’. Compare German Bruehl.
- German : from Middle Low German brill ‘eyeglasses’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a maker of spectacles or perhaps a nickname for someone who wore them.
- Jewish (Ashkenazic) : acronymic surname from Hebrew ben rabi ‘son of …’ and the first letter of each part of a Yiddish double male personal name, most likely Yude (Juda) Leyb. Many Ashkenazic family names beginning with Br- and Bar- are probably of acronymic origin, but without detailed evidence from family histories it is impossible to specify the personal name from which each is derived.