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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Apparently of Dutch origin, probably an altered form of Paling, a nickname for a lithe or devious man or a metonymic occupational name for a seller or catcher of eels, from paling ‘eel’.
  • The surname is common among the Dutch in the Tarrytown area of NY. The writer James Kirke Paulding (1778–1860) published a humorous periodical with the novelist Washington Irving.

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