Dial
An English and Irish surname often treated as a spelling variant or corruption of Doyle, with some historical uncertainty.
The #3,287 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 28,075 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The strongest old dictionary evidence treats Dial as a corruption of Doyle, an anglicized Irish surname from Ó Dubhghaill, meaning 'descendant of the dark stranger' or 'descendant of the dark foreigner.' In older surname books, Dial is not usually explained as an independent word-name but as a later altered spelling. Because the historical sources are brief and indirect, this remains a cautious explanation rather than a certain one.
History
Lower’s 19th-century surname dictionary explicitly gives Dial as a corruption of Doyle. That fits the way Irish surnames were often reshaped in English records, especially in Britain and the United States. The form is relatively uncommon today, but it appears in English-language records as a variant surname spelling.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same source that links Dial to Doyle also places it alongside other surnames that have been heavily altered by English spelling and pronunciation over time.
From the historical record
“baroniffi. Kelham"s Domesd. DIAL. A corruption of Doyle. DIA]\IOND. In the parish register of Brenchley, co. Kent, there is an entry to the effect that, in 1612— 'John Diamond, son of John du Mont the Frenchman, was baptized.' The elder Du Mont was a Kentish iron-master, who had settled in that county from France.…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom