Speidel Family Surname Meaning

Speidel is an Alemannic-Suebian (Swabian) and Bavarian word that means wedge.

The specific type of wedge is debated in The Speidel Family by Sidney Merlin Spidell. In the book, two possible meanings are given.

First, a speidel is a type of wedge that is used to split logs. Several generations of Speidels in Wuerttemberg were documented as coopers by trade. Some of the Coats-of-Arms for some of the Speidel branches do feature logs on them.

Second and possibly more interesting is that the wedge was a form of battle used by the first to carry the name Speidel. In the Legend "Battle Wedge of Odin", Odin drew up Hadding's forces in a wedge form of battle, which after that time, and for many centuries following, was the strictly preserved rule for the battle array of Teutonic forces. Thereafter Hadding was given the cognomen of "the wedge" and a line of his desceniants who were nobles among the Suebi retained the cognomen which, in the Suebian tongue, was Speidel. Of the five different Speidel Coats-of-Arms that I have seen, four feature three wedges. Three of the four have the wedges arranged with one wedge in front followed by the other two wedges so that the three wedges together form one large wedge. This would seem to be in line with the battle wedge theory.