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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : from Middle English selle, a rough hut of the type normally occupied by animals, hence a topographic name for someone who lived in a hut like this. In many cases the name may have been in effect a metonymic occupational name for a herdsman.
  • Americanized spelling of Hungarian and Hungarian Jewish Széll, a topographic name for someone who lived in a spot exposed to the wind, from Hungarian szél ‘wind’.
  • German : variant of Selle.

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