Family name origins & meanings
- English (Warwickshire) : apparently a variant of Gourley or Gorley.
- Possibly an Americanized spelling of French Gourlé, from Old French gourle ‘money belt’. Its application as a surname is not clear; it may have been a metonymic occupational name for a maker of such receptacles, or perhaps a nickname for someone who was tight with his money.
- Alternatively, it may be an Americanized form of German Gerling or Gerlich.