Family name origins & meanings
- North German, Danish, and Dutch : from a shortened form of the personal name Billulf, composed of the elements bil ‘sword’, ‘axe’ + wulf ‘wolf’, or some other name with bil as the first element. For German, however, the most likely source is Pille, a French Huguenot name from the Dauphiné.
- English : variant spelling of Pill 2.
- French : habitational name from any of various minor places in northern France, so named from Old French pile, Latin pila, ‘pillar’, ‘column’. In Middle French pile denoted a trough used for crushing or pounding various materials, such as lime, and in some cases the surname may have arisen as a metonymic occupational name for someone engaged in such work.