First name origins & meanings:
- Norse: Hero
- Irish: Wise one
First name variations: Hailey, Hayley, Haylee, Haile, Hally, Halley, Halli, Hallie, Hali, Haleigh, Haleigha, Haleh, Hollis, Haley Last name origins & meanings:
- English (also well established in South Wales): topographic
name for someone who lived in a nook or hollow, from Old English and
Middle English hale, dative of h(e)alh ‘nook’,
‘hollow’. In northern England the word often has a specialized
meaning, denoting a piece of flat alluvial land by the side of a
river, typically one deposited in a bend. In southeastern England it
often referred to a patch of dry land in a fen. In some cases the
surname may be a habitational name from any of the several places in
England named with this fossilized inflected form, which would
originally have been preceded by a preposition, e.g. in the
hale or at the hale.
- English: from a Middle English personal name derived from either of two Old
English bynames, Hæle ‘hero’ or Hægel, which is
probably akin to Germanic Hagano ‘hawthorn’ (see Hain
2).
- Irish: reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Céile
(see McHale).
- Jewish (Ashkenazic): variant
spelling of Halle.
- Robert Hale, who settled in Cambridge, MA, in 1632, was an ancestor
of the revolutionary war patriot and spy Nathan Hale (1755–76) of
CT. The common English surname was brought independently in the 17th
century to VA and MD.
This name appears in the following lists:
Cowboys and Cowgirls,
Heroes and Heroines
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