One would imagine the name of BELLMAN to be quite common, but there 
is very little mention of it in reference books in the State Library 
in Adelaide.   However in  "A Dictionary of British Surnames",  by 
P H Reaney,  the name appears as Bellman or Belman,  and mention is 
made of a William Bellman in 1300 at Crowland, England, so the name 
is of early origin.   This book also mentions a Katarina Beleman in 
1327 and Gilbert Belman in 1398.

The name, "bellman", in York and Scotland, was used of the town crier, 
Beleman may mean 'servant of Bele'or it might be a hybrid, bele meaning 
'beautiful, fair', and joined with 'man' making 'Fairman' or 'Bellman'.

In the Denham Parish Register, Suffolk, the surname appears as Beleman, 
Belleman, Belliman  (1585-1606), Billeman  (1776), Billyman  (1784) and 
in that of Rushbrook,  as Billeman and Billerman  (1760-1791).  It is 
suggested from this that the 'beli' means 'bellows' and the name could 
mean 'bellows-blower'.

However the name "Bellman" has an English sound to it and it sounds to 
the ordinary person that our early ancestor was a man who rang a bell. 

The surname is fairly uncommon in South Australia up to this time, and 
some effort has been made to check the background of people of the name 
of Bellman to determine whether they are related to our own family.  No 
connection has been found with those few other families. 

Through the International Genealogical Index, available at the Genealogy 
Society Library, the ancestors of our Bellman family have been traced back
to about 1650 to John Bellman, great, great, great-grandfather of pioneer 
Charles Henry Bellman, who migrated to South Australia in 1858.