Sable Family History

Americanized form of German Zabel. French: topographic name for someone who lived in a sandy place from sable ‘sand’. French (Sablé): habitational name from a place so called in Sarthe.

English: from the personal name Sabel, a Middle English pet form of the female name Isabel or a shortened form of Sabelin(e), a pet form of Sabin (male or female).

English: alternatively, the name may have arisen as a nickname for a furrier or for someone with black hair from Middle English sable ‘sable black fur the color black’.

However, the absence of medieval evidence for the nickname makes this explanation quite conjectural.