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English Scottish and northern Irish: habitational name from any of several places in England and Scotland variously spelled that are named with Old English ceald ‘cold’ + well(a) ‘spring stream’. Caldwell in North Yorkshire is one major source of the surname; Caldwell in Renfrewshire in Scotland another. Possibly also from Caldwell (Warwickshire) Caldwall (Worcestershire) Cauldwell (Bedfordshire Derbyshire Nottinghamshire) Caudle Green (Gloucestershire) Caudle Ditch or Cawdle Fen (Cambridgeshire) Chadwell (Essex Hertfordshire Leicestershire Wiltshire) Chardwell (Essex) or Chardle Ditch (Cambridgeshire early recorded as Kadewelle). Irish: when not the English surname this is an Anglicized form of Ó Fuarghuis or Ó hUarghusa ‘descendant of (F)uarghus’ a personal name whose literal sense ‘cold’ + ‘choice’ was reinterpreted as coming from fuaruisce ‘cold water’.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022