Gilles
A French surname from the name of St. Giles, ultimately from Latin Aegidius.
The #8,082 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 75,267 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Gilles is the French form of the personal name Giles, which was associated in medieval Europe with St. Giles. The saint’s name goes back to Latin Aegidius, a learned form that was later treated as a saint’s name and spread widely through Christian naming. In surname use, Gilles is therefore usually a metronymic/patronymic-style surname built from a given name rather than a word with a literal occupational meaning.
History
The excerpts repeatedly treat Gilles as the French form underlying related names such as Gillot and Gillies, and one source explicitly identifies it as a saint’s name. It appears in Norman and French contexts and was later taken up in Britain, especially in families of French or Norman connection. The name also generated many diminutive and variant forms in French and Scots usage.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Several surname families that look different today, including Gillies and Gillot, were historically explained as coming from the same root name as Gilles.
From the historical record
“as well as Jellett and Guillot, have all been originally the same, namely Gillot, the diminutive of Gilles, the French form of Giles." Ulster Journal of Archseology — SBcl duVifo. GLADSTAXES. GLEDSTANES. Of that Ilk in Teviotdale, i. e. Roxburghshire.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom