Frequency: (108)
(number of times this surname appears in a sample database of 88.7 million names, representing one third of the 1997 US population)
1. 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.
2. Catalan: topographic name from Old French sevil ‘fence’, ‘enclosure’.
See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.
