This surname of ASHPOOL is a corruption of the name ARCHIBALD, an English and Scottish given name from the Norman ARCHAMBAULT, which was composed of the elements ERCAN (precious) + BALD (bold, daring). The name is chiefly common in Scotland, especially around Edinburgh, whence is spread to Ulster and Canada; it is the surname of a leading Nova Scotia family, taken there by four brothers who emigrated from Londonderry in 1750-62. Other spellings of the name include ASHBOLT, ASHPOLE, ARCHEPOLL, ARCHPOOLE and ARCHIBALD. Early records of the name include Walter ARCHEMBOLD who was recorded in the year 1130 in County Gloucestershire and Thomas HERCHEBAUD appears in the year 1302 in County Surrey. It was not until the 10th century that modern hereditary surnames first developed, and the use of fixed names spread, first to France, and then England, then to Germany and all of Europe. In these parts of Europe, the individual man was becoming more important, commerce was increasing and the exact identification of each man was becoming a necessity. Even today however, the Church does not recognise surnames. Baptisms and marriages are performed through use of the Christian name alone. Thus hereditary names as we know them today developed gradually during the 11th to the 15th century in the various European countries. Later instances of the name mention Robert ARCHPOOLE, who was recorded in Rochester, Kent in 1523, and Edward ARCHEPOLL was documented in Worcestershire in 1591. Over the centuries, most people in Europe have accepted their surname as a fact of life, as irrevocable as an act of God. However much the individual may have liked or disliked the surname, they were stuck with it, and people rarely changed them by personal choice. A more common form of variation was in fact involuntary, when an official change was made, in other words, a clerical error. Among the humbler classes of European society, and especially among illiterate people, individuals were willing to accept the mistakes of officials, clerks and priests as officially bestowing a new version of their surname, just as they had meekly accepted the surname they had been born with. In North America, the linguistic problems confronting immigration officials at Ellis Island in the 19th century were legendary as a prolific source of Anglicization.