Lowell Family - Lowle To Lowell

Lowle To Lowell

After Percival Lowle emigrated to the New World with his sons and after some subsequent generations Lowle became Lowell. Delmar Lowell suggests that Rev. John Lowell was the catalyst in getting the Lowell family into cohesion regarding the spelling of the surname sometime after 1721. At the time, Lowells all over New England spelled their names as many different ways as there were branches. Some spelled their surname Lowel, Lowle, Lowell, Lowl, and some spelled it Louell, and Louel even after arriving in the new world. Spelling was so poorly controlled that some early wills show one son with the name Lowle while another son is Lowel and the wife as Lowell all in the same document. It's unlikely that one member of the family had such a big impact on the name. He may well have influenced many Lowells in America to be consistent, however, documentation shows that Lowles in England started spelling their name Lowell around this time as well. By the mid 18th century in England there are plenty of documents for Lowells and none for the prior spellings. This suggests that the proliferation of literacy and a trend to standardize the English language caused members of the family on both sides of the Atlantic to adopt the phonetic spelling.