THE ORIGIN OF THE SURNAME MINALL
There is no doubt about the origin of the surname Minall. It is derived from the place-name Mildenhall, a village in the valley of the River Kennet, in Wiltshire, England.
A Saxon document Cartularium Saxonimum (803/5) calls the village Mildanhald. The Domesday Book (1086) calls it Mildenhalle.
The original meaning of the name, according to the English Place Names Society ( vol. XVI, 1939, Wiltshire), was probably "Milda's heath, or corner of land".
The Wiltshire County Archivist, in 1955. wrote:
"Minal" is a written version of the local pronunciation of Mildenhall.
The Vicar of Mildenhall in 1948 wrote:
Minal has been the local name for over 100 years.
The Mildenhalls and the Minalls proliferated in the villages around Mildenhall, but especially in Ramsbury and Great and Little Bedwyn. The earliest occurrences of the form Minall, as far as I have discovered, was in the will of Robert Mynall of Gt. Bedwyn, born abt. 1540, d.1603, and in the records of Thomas Minall of Marridge Hill, Ramsbury, born abt. 1580, d. 1637/8.