Onomastics is the science and the study of the proper names of people and places, so I thought it would be amusing to create the neologism "Pinel-istics" to talk about the name Pinel.

Pinel is thought to draw its etymology from the Latin word pinus meaning pine or pine forest and from the suffix '-ellus' which means small or lesser.
At the time of the Roman Empire, people were already carrying the nickname of Pinus. (for example Cornelius Pinus, painter of the time of Vespasian, see Pline the Old.
In old French, during the middle Ages, ‘pinel’ was a word designating either a small pine tree or pine woods (Garin-le-Loherin, chanson de geste, end of 12th century).
The first Pinels certainly drew the name from the place where they lived and probably also planted pines. Lords were almost certain to have taken the name of the feudal estate that they ruled, or, of the land that they inherited. So it is reasonable to think that the name Pinel appeared simultaneously in various regions of France.