Scales Family History

English: plural form of Scale naming a herdsman living and working on a summer pasture or a habitational name for someone from a place called Scales, mostly minor places in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Scholes is a dialect variant of the same name. (of Norman origin): habitational name either from Écalles-Alix (Seine-Maritime) Écalles (in Estouteville-Écalles Seine-Maritime) or from Escalles (Pas-de-Calais).

The earliest spellings of these names suggest a derivation from Latin scala, scalae (plural) ‘ladder, staircase, stile’ perhaps applied to a steep slope or path, although Old Norse skáli (‘herdsman's hut, shieling’, see Scale) has also been suggested for Écalles.

Challis may be a variant of the same name. The surname has also been established in southern Ireland (Limerick) since the 14th century.