In 1939 the Media Research Bureau in Washington DC did a Genealogical and Historical Sketch on the name and family of Goble. The results of the study are reprinted below.
"The name of Goble, sometimes Gobel, is believed to have been a comparatively recent variant on the ancient Anglo-Saxon personal name of Godbold or Godbeald. One writer says of Godbeald that it "survives more fully as Godbolt and Goble". These names appear in ancient English and early American records in the various spellings of Godbeald, Godbold, Godebold, Godbould, Godbolt, Gobaud, Gobett, Gobet, Gobble, Gobell, Gobel, Goble, and others. Of these, the last mentioned form is that most frequently used in America in modern times.
Among the earliest records of the name as a personal or baptismal name are those of one Godebold, who is recorded in the "Doomsday Book" (compiled near the end of the eleventh century by order of the Norman conquerors of England) as a "previous Anglo-Saxon tenant," and those of Godebold de Writel, who was living at Writel, in England, (the French "de" meaning "of") between the years 1216 and 1272. The name was first assumed as a patronymic by the sons of those so called.
Records of the English family of Godbold, from which the American families of Goble or Gobel are believed to be, in large part, at least, descended, include those of John Gobaud, of Huntindonshire, about the year 1273; those of Nicholas Godbould, of Badingham, County Suffolk, in the first half of the sixteenth century, whose daughter Margery married William Dade before 1556; those of Richard Godbold, of County Norfolk, in 1561; those of Thomas Godbould, of County Norfolk about 1618; those of John Godbold, of Buckinghamshire, before 1621; those of Thomas Godbold, of London, who married the Widow Isabel Gower in 1667; those of Sire William Godbold, of Mendlham, County Suffolk, who married the lady Elizabeth Bacon, of Gillingham, County Norfolk in 1669; those of Richard Godbold, of Hatfield Peverell, County Essex, "Gentleman", who married Millicent Brampton in 1672; and those of Thomas Godbould, of London, who was married in 1631 to Elizabeth Caswell.
About the beginning of the following century one James Goble was living at Petworth, in the County of Sussex. He married Walsingham Sheppard, of that place, and was the father by her of a son named James, who left issue by his wife Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Richard Holmes, of two children, James Homes and Elizabeth Goble.John Goble, who settled on the Island of Antigua, in the West Indies, in the early eighteenth century, purchased one hundred and forty-five acres of land in St. Philip's parish before the year 1724. By his wife Elizabeth, he was the father of a son named Martin, who married Mary, daughter of Samuel Harman, in 1746 and had issue by her of two sons, John and Samuel Wickham Goble.
While the connecting links are not in evidence, it is considered probable that all of the Gobles of America are descended from the before-mentioned British lines. In many cases, too, Gobel is known to be a variant of Goble, but some of the American lines of that name may be descended from certain Continental European Gobels.
The first of the family in America was Thomas Goble, who settled at Charlestown, Mass., in 1634, but later removed to Concord, in the same colony. By his wife Alice, he was the father of six children, John, Thomas, Elizabeth, Mary, Sarah, and Daniel."
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