Updated June 9, 2019

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Family name origins & meanings

  • French, Catalan, and Spanish : nickname from civil, from Latin civilis ‘civil’, ‘of or pertaining to a citizen’, by extension ‘cultivated’, ‘educated’. However, in Spanish the term also meant ‘wicked’ or ‘rude’ and the nickname may have come from either of these senses.
  • Catalan : topographic name from Old French sevil ‘fence’, ‘enclosure’.