The first known recording of the name comes in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, referring to a Brittonic king known as Huwal of the West Welsh in 926 AD.

[3] Many scholars believe this to be referring to the 10th-century law giving Welsh king, Hywel Dda,[4][5][6] to which many Howells claim their descent from.

[10] In Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century pseudohistorical Historia regum Britanniae, there is mention of a late 5th and early 6th-century Brittonic king known as Hywel the Great, said to be born in around 500 AD.

This is the earliest claimed account of the name, although Hywel the Great is generally considered as legendary, he appears in Welsh mythology and the Matter of Britain as a "king of Brittany".

Some descendants of these formerly enslaved peoples, continue to bear these surnames today, particularly in countries in the West Indies.