Family name origins & meanings
- French : status name or occupational name from Old French maresc(h)al ‘marshal’. The term is of Germanic origin (from marah ‘horse’, ‘mare’ + scalc ‘servant’) and was originally applied to a man who looked after horses. In the Middle Ages it also came to be used on the one hand as an occupational name for a farrier, and on the other as a status name for an officer of state, in particular a member of a royal household with military responsibilities. Compare Marshall.