SonofaMurl.

From Brother Murl:

In a little book entitled “Surnames as a Science,” published in London in 1883, Robert Ferguson, M.P., seeks to derive “Merrill” from a German origin through the Anglo-Saxon. Few of us will thank him for his efforts.
“Marlingen,” he says, is a Bavarian family name, and it appears in the Anglo-Saxon as “Merlingas.” The “ing” in this name “is a patronymic, as in Bruning, son of Br–n.” The ending “ingas” is of the nominative plural, Merlingas thus denoting sons or descendants of Merl. According to this theory, some family among the Saxon hordes which invaded England in the fifth and sixth centuries may have been under the patriarchal leadership of a man (or perhaps a 6'2" blond girl) named Merl, and all the individuals in the group accordingly took the name Merlingas, or sons or followers of Merl.

Interesting.