Gailey Family History

English: habitational name from a place in Staffordshire named Gailey from Old English gagel ‘bog-myrtle’ + lēah ‘woodland clearing’. In some instances an altered form of South German Gailer (variant of Geiler) or of Swiss German Gälli (see Gall).

Scottish: from Gaelic Gallaich a collective name used for the inhabitants of Caithness who were largely of Scandinavian origin and regarded as ‘foreign’ or ‘strangers’. This is also a collective name (in Ayrshire and adjoining counties) from gallda ‘stranger’.