Family name origins & meanings
- North German : habitational name from Melle near Osnabrück, earlier Menele , probably from Old Saxon gimēni ‘public’ + lō ‘woods’.
- Dutch and Belgian (van Melle) : habitational name from places in East Flanders and North Brabant.
- Galician : habitational name from a village so named in Lugo province, Galicia.
- French : metonymic occupational name from Old French melle ‘buckle’, ‘ring’.
- French : habitation name from Melle-sur-Béronne in Deux-Sèvres.