Ingersoll is a surname derived of the Old Norse words "Ingvar" or "Inger" and "sál", common words in found in modern Icelandic, Swedish and Norwegian.[1]

Surnames derived from Old Norse have changed over time due to the splitting of the language into modern Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Greenlandic, Faroese and Danish[2] as well as names being changed with immigration into new countries like the United States.[3]

This surname has split over time into some of these common spellings: Ingersoll, Ingersöll, Ingersol, Ingersole, Ingvarsson, Ingersson, Inkersoll, and Ingwersol.

During the Viking Age, from the late 8th century to the mid-11th century, the Old Norse language expanded through Europe as the Vikings conquered and settled areas like Normandy (Normanni in Old Norse) and Inkersall (Ingvarsál in Old Norse).[4]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Veka, Olav (2000). Norsk etternamnleksikon. Det Norske Samlaget.
  2. ^ Harbert, Wayne (2007). The Germanic Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  3. ^ Kimmerle, Marjorie (1941). Norwegian-American Surnames in Norwegian-American Studies. pp. 12:1–32.
  4. ^ Patrick Hanks; Flavia Hodges (1988). A Dictionary of Surnames. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-211592-8.