Family name origins & meanings
- English : from Middle English sale ‘hall’, a topographic name for someone living at a hall or manor house, or a metonymic occupational name for someone employed at a hall or manor house.
- English : from Middle English salwe ‘sallow’ (a tree, a kind of willow), hence a topographic name for someone who lived by a sallow tree, or a habitational name from for example Sale in Greater Manchester, named from the old dative form of this word, in atte sale.
- French (Salé) : from Old French salé ‘salty’, hence a topographic or occupational name for someone who lived by or worked in a salt marsh, or, in a figurative sense, a nickname for an amusing or witty person.