I recall reading somewhere on the Downs about Ceorl's name's origin, but I can't believe I was that slow about
eorl. Admittedly, first time I read about Eorl the Young was when I couldn't string a full sentence in proper English, and I guess the two words never overlapped in my mind. But still, it took me way longer than is probably needed to figure this out!
Going on to see the full entry for ceorl, I discovered that it might also be related to the Russian word for
king (
korol'), but apparently there is much debate about that among the philologists of google.ru. They don't believe that Charles the Great deserves that much credit for spreading the sound combination all over Europe.
Another similar discovery I made a while back is that the Thains are really thanes. All my life I mispronounced "Thain", saying it like it's two syllables. And at this point I really don't have an excuse, because I was familiar with the word
thane before I read LOTR in English.