Gale Family History

English: nickname from Anglo-Norman French gal gale galle ‘cock cockerel’. English: habitational name from a minor place called with either Middle English gale gagel (Old English gagel) ‘bog myrtle’ or with Middle English gale ‘fishery paying dues to the lord’ (Old English gafol ‘tax’?) such as Gale in Bickington (Devon) and The Gale the name of a fishery in Ham and Stone (Gloucestershire).

English: topographic name from Middle English gale gail (Old Norse geil) ‘ravine narrow lane’ or a habitational name from a place so named such as Gale in Littleborough Rochdale (Lancashire) or possibly High Gale in Tatham or Tunstall (Lancashire). With the sense ‘narrow lane’ it is found in several street names in medieval York.

English: metonymic occupational name for a jailer or a topographic name for someone who lived near the local jail or a nickname for a jailbird occasionally perhaps for someone who worked ‘(at the) jail’ from Middle English gayole gayll(e) jaiole jaile (northern Old French gaiole Parisian Old French jaiole). Compare Galer.

English (of Norman origin): perhaps occasionally from the Old French personal name Gale a Parisian form of ancient Germanic Walo (see Wale and compare Gallon). However the only examples of it as a personal name in English records seem to belong to (presumably French) foreigners so it is uncertain whether this was another source of the Middle English surnames.

Portuguese: from galé ‘galleon warship’ presumably a metonymic occupational name for a shipwright or a mariner. Slovenian and Croatian: from a pet form of the personal name Gal. Compare Galle and Gole.