Gayle
Usually a spelling variant of Gale, a surname that can come from a place-name or from Old English and French words meaning cheerful, pleasant, or a foreigner.
The #4,481 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 39,003 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Gayle is generally treated as a variant spelling of Gale. In English surname tradition, Gale can have more than one source: it may be locational, from a place-name such as Gale or Gayle in northern England, or it may come from older words meaning bright, lively, or cheerful; in some cases it is also linked to Middle English and French forms used as descriptive nicknames. Because several unrelated roots could produce the same surname form, the exact origin of any one Gayle family is often not certain without local records.
History
The name appears in British records in several regions and later turns up in North America, where Gayle and Gale coexist as variant spellings. Older surname dictionaries often treat Gayle as part of the wider Gale group rather than as a separate, firmly distinct surname. Modern bearers may descend from different origins that happened to settle on the same spelling.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century surname writers sometimes grouped Gayle with a whole cluster of lookalike names, showing how easily spelling could shift before modern standardization.
From the historical record
“idi6. Married - Richard Peddei and Ann Gayle : St laL Clerkenvell, iii. 41, 1 771. - Janje.EYansand Mary Pedder ; St. Geo, Han. Sq. I. 310, London, 4, I, 1; MDB. (co. Cornwall),”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances