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First name origin: English and German

First name meaning: from a Germanic personal name, either a short form of compound names such as Billard, or else a byname Bill(a), from Old English bil ‘sword’, ‘halberd’ (or a Continental cognate). (Bill as a short form of William was not used until the 17th century.)

Last name origin: English

Last name meaning: topographic name for someone who lived by the gates of a medieval walled town. The Middle English singular gate is from the Old English plural, gatu, of geat ‘gate’ (see Yates). Since medieval gates were normally arranged in pairs, fastened in the center, the Old English plural came to function as a singular, and a new Middle English plural ending in -s was formed. In some cases the name may refer specifically to the Sussex place Eastergate (i.e. ‘eastern gate’), known also as Gates in the 13th and 14th centuries, when surnames were being acquired.