Family name origins & meanings
- German (Lower Rhine-Westphalia) and French (Alsace) :
- topographic name for someone who lived near a stand or grove of holly, from a dialect form of hülse ‘holly’ (Ilex aquifolium). Compare Hulst. This is also the name of a range of wooded hills near Hildesheim.
- from a short form of a Germanic personal name with hild ‘fight’, ‘battle’ as the first element.