Levett is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin, deriving from [de] Livet, which is held particularly by families and individuals resident in England and British Commonwealth territories. Origins This surname comes from the village of Livet-en-Ouche, now Jonquerets-de-Livet, in Eure, Normandy. Here the de Livets were undertenants of the de Ferrers family, among the most powerful of William the Conqueror's Norman lords. The name Livet (first recorded as Lived in the 11th century), of Gaulish etymology, may mean a "place where yew-trees grow". The first de Livet in England, Roger, appears in Domesday as a tenant of the Norman magnate Henry de Ferrers. de Livet held land in Leicestershire, and was, along with Ferrers, a benefactor of Tutbury Priory. By about 1270, when the Dering Roll was crafted to display the coats of arms of 324 of England's most powerful lords, the coat of arms of Robert Livet, Knight, was among them. Some Levetts were early knights and Crusaders; many members of both English and French families were Knights Hospitallers, and served as courtiers. English Levetts A Levett family settled in Derbyshire was extinct by the early sixteenth century. A family of the name resident in Sussex at Warbleton and Salehurst also held the manor of Firle until it passed from family control in 1440 due to the debts of Thomas Levett, whose bankruptcy also necessitated the loss of Catsfield, East Sussex. Sussex deeds indicate instances of 'Levetts' attached to place names, indicating possession by individuals and families of that name. In 1620, John Levett, of Sedlescombe, Sussex, was forced by financial hardship to sell his half-interest in Bodiam Castle, inherited family land and property across Sussex and Kent, including at Ewhurst, Salehurst, Battle, Sussex and Hawkhurst, Kent, to Sir Thomas Dyke, for £1000; this represented the end of these Levetts as prominent landowners. Families of the name Levett (also Levet, Lyvet, Levytt, Livett, Delivett, Levete, Leavett, Leavitt, Lovett and others) would subsequently settle in Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, Worcestershire, Suffolk, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Kent, Bedfordshire and Staffordshire. By the mid twentieth century, only two prominent Levett families remained; that of Milford Hall, Staffordshire and that formerly of Wychnor Hall, Staffordshire (and Packington Hall). Milford Hall passed in the female line to the Haszard family, and Wychnor Park was sold by the Levetts to Lt-Col W. E. Harrison in 1913, this later becoming a country club. The Levett-Scrivener family (descending from a daughter of