Where the Wells name comes from

Wells is an English surname built on the Old English word wella, meaning a spring or a stream. The earliest form was a genitive plural, marking someone who came from a place with a group of springs, and the final s settled into its modern shape as English lost its case endings. The name also served as an occupational name for the person who looked after a village's spring, and as a habitational name from places such as Wells in Somerset or Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. The Somerset city took its own name from its springs, which still rise in the gardens of the Bishop's Palace.

The oldest public record of the surname dates from 1177, in the pipe rolls of Norfolk during the reign of Henry II. Robert Wells was christened at Christchurch Greyfriars in the city of London on 7 January 1557, and the name also stands as an English rendering of the French Dupuis. Variants include Well, Welles, Welman and Wellman.