Bell (surname) of "Isobel". In some cases, the surname originates from a nickname, or descriptive name, derived from the Old French "bel" ("beautiful", "fair"). In other cases, the surname "Bell" represents an English form of the Gaelic surname "Mac Giolla Mhaoil" ("son of the servant of the devotee"). In some cases, the surname is derived from placenames in Norway (Bell) and Germany (Bell in Rhineland; and possibly Belle, in Westphalia). The surname Bell is also sometimes an Anglicized form of the German "Böhl" or "Böll". Early attested forms of the surname when of a patronymic origin include: Ailuuardus ""filius Belli"", in 1086;
Mac and Mc together example has been taken as representative of a possible paradigm. A book on filing rules from 1918 gives an example showing Mc and M' treated as abbreviations, i.e. for Mac, and ordered as if in the expanded version; and a similar book from 1922 makes the rule one of a number that apply also to St. (Saint) and Mrs. (Mistress). A 1938 book that is a comparative study of cataloguing in various British libraries regarded Mac + Mc + M' sorting as an example of achieved "standardisation" in alphabetisation. It gave further examples where, it argued, such standardisation would be