Option 1
Animals were herded into an enclosure at night, presumably for safety. The enclosure was called a Darvill (why I dont know). Someone would stay with the animals overnight, and spend the day collecting their excrement into a big pile, for use as fertiliser. Over time, this man became known as the Darvill.

option 2
• Derived from Old English deor fald (in the language introduced by Angles, Saxons, Jutes – see annex: historical sequence). Enclosure here likely to mean any land enclosed for animals (deor), whether woodland or pasture, as opposed to open unfenced country. However, might have referred to a small field or compound used to herd animals at night (and hence collect the dung for fertiliser, a privilege of the land-owner).

• In the early 16th century almost all of those in England with this surname lived in and mostly above the town of Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire to the north west of London. This is part of the Chilterns chalk downland country. Nowadays, Darvillshill is a tiny hamlet with a pub up on the downs, still marked on Ordnance Survey maps.

• Early 16th century spellings of the name included: Derfolde, Derwall, Dorfall, Dorfolde, Dorvall, Dorwold, these being different versions used by itinerant scribes undertaking the national Muster Roll of 1522 (personal weapons owned) and Subsidy Roll of 1524 (taxable goods).

• My immediate (direct descent) ancestors of the Darvill ‘family’ lived in the Princes Risborough area until around 1870. The records of this line go back unbroken to 1680, then are lost.

• The DNA of the inhabitants of this central part of England is still about 50% the same as the original stone age (post Ice Age) British populations, and 50% from the Saxons. They had long since inter-married by the 16th century. (The old British population survived with little change until the Saxon invasions, because Bronze Age, Iron Age (‘Celtic’) and Roman population invasions were small numerically)

Option 3
British derfael, meaning stubborn metal in the ancient language. Several other British words have survived to this day as place-names in the locality. But I do not think there is metal in the geology of this area.

Norman. The argument here is a little complex. There was a de Dereville or deDerevile owning land in the area in the late 13th century, who also had a grandson. From the Norman Conquest (1066) onwards there was a tendency among Saxons to Normanise the spellings of their names - after all Normans were the conquerors, landowners and elite. Their language came from what is now France. So these De Derevilles (and their descendants) may have been Saxons, but could have been Normans. I’m not sure what Dereville as a Norman word would have meant if it referred to a natural feature.

Option 4
The scribe(s) of the Muster and Subsidy Rolls of 1522 and 1524 chose to spell the name with Saxon rather than Norman connotations even though some of those recorded were quite wealthy. In this case the surname seems to have remained associated with a land feature, which was less likely to have been Normanised. These people could nonetheless have been of Norman stock, but if the name is Norman I think they are more likely to have been servants, retainers, bailiffs etc of the Norman elite.

Option 5
A small town in ayreshire in Scotland called darvel (you’ll find it on multimap) which derives from the celtic word for oak which is dair. The town was a huge chair making area owned by the clan campbell (the villagers were mixtures or McCloed’s, Campbells, Hunters etc) and as people moved away their new names would have been wirtten down by the parish clerk who could have decided on a multitude of spellings and also they may have been known as John from Darvel which eventually became John Darvill on the parish records in england. Also celtic heritage at the time may not have been something many people wanted to publisice so again the use of Darvill would have been better than Campbell or the such. In my families case we ended up in High Wycombe which was another chair making area in south bucks so using the Darvel brand may of helped us get work (the chairs made in both areas are suprisingly alike). High Wycombe footbal team even play in the same colours as the Darvel football team so the links are quite strange and seem more than plausable even likely.

Option 6
I was always told that the Darvill name originated from France, and that there is a village in northern France named after the Darvill’s - Darvills came over from Arvill, a small town to the south east of Paris, with the hugenots. So we used to be d’Arvill - people of Arvill. I think we were was something to do with textile manufacture - like weaving fine silks or dying of cloth. Definately master craftsmen, imported to give the nobility a touch of european class!