Gault
A surname with several possible roots, most often treated as a variant of Gaunt or as a nickname from an old word for a boar pig.
The #5,468 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 48,545 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Gault is difficult to pin to one single source. Some 19th-century authorities linked it with Middle English / Old English forms meaning a boar pig, making it a nickname surname of the sort that could begin as a vivid personal label. Other scholars treated it as a spelling variant or shortened form of Gaunt/Gant, which itself may go back to French or Norman forms. In some local traditions it also appears as a place-name surname, so more than one origin may have been at work.
History
The name is recorded in British surname works with several competing explanations, which suggests that different families may have arrived at the spelling independently. The form is also seen in Irish genealogical sources as part of older family-name lists, but those references do not settle a single etymology. In modern usage it survives chiefly in Britain, Ireland, and the United States, often alongside related spellings such as Galt and Gaunt.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One old gloss cited by surname writers explains Galt as a word for a boar pig, which is why it was compared with other animal-based surnames like Pigg and Hogg.
From the historical record
“worthy. Gait, Gault.— Nick, 'the gait*; O.E. galtj a boar pig; cf. Pigg, Wildbore, Hogg, &c *Galt, a boar pig(North); a gallte, mfttndusx NominaleMS.'(Halliwell). 'Gresse g^rowene as a galte ': Morte Arthure”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames (alternate scan)