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Updated June 9, 2019

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.

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