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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • French : habitational name from a place in Isère, originally named with Latin sabellum, a variant of sabulum ‘sand’.
  • Dutch : topographic name from zavel, savel ‘sand’, or a habitational name (Van den Savel, Van de(r) Savel) for someone from one of the places named with this word.
  • Dutch : from Middle Dutch sabel, savel ‘sable’, ‘black fur’, a metonymic occupational name for a furrier, or nickname for a black-haired person.

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