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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : from Middle English salwes ‘sallows’, a topographic name for someone who lived by a group of sallow trees (see Sale 2).
  • Catalan and Asturian-Leonese : a habitational name from any of the places called Sales, like Sales de Llierca (Catalonia) or Sales (Asturies), from the plural of Sala 1. This name is specially common in Catalonia.
  • Portuguese : habitational name from a place that is probably so called from a Germanic personal name of uncertain form and derivation.
  • Portuguese : religious byname adopted since the 17th century in honor of St. Francis of Sales (1567–1622), who was born at the Château de Sales in Savoy.
  • French (Salès) : habitational name from places named Salès in Cantal and Tarn.

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