Kahl
A German surname meaning “bald,” originally a nickname for someone with little hair.
The #6,508 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 59,203 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Kahl comes from German kahl, meaning “bald,” “bare,” or “naked.” In surname use, it most likely began as a nickname for a bald man or someone with a bare, exposed look. The same idea goes back to older Germanic and Latin forms related to baldness, including Latin calvus.
History
The name appears in German-speaking areas and also shows up in German-American surname studies. Historical writers often grouped it with other descriptive surnames such as Klein (“small”), Kurz (“short”), and Krause (“curly”). Related forms include Kahle, Kahler, and Kahlert.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
19th-century surname scholars explicitly glossed Kahl as “Bald,” making it one of the clearest descriptive German surnames.
From the historical record
“durch ihre Länge ins Ohr fielen, indem sie mindestens dreisilbig, oft aber vier-, fünf-, ja sechssilbig sind: erschienen die einfachen lateinischen Namen in ihrer Kürze noch zu kahl; mindestens mußte den zweisilbigen wie Sartor, Fistor noch eine Endung gleichsam als Schleppe angehängt werden, um die Würde ihrer…”
— Die deutschen Familiennamen