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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : metonymic occupational name for an armorer, from Middle English scheld ‘shield’ (Old English scild, sceld).
  • English : topographic name for someone who lived near the shallow part of a river, from Middle English scheld ‘shallow place’ (Old English sceldu, scieldu).
  • Irish : Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Siadhail ‘descendant of Siadhal’ (see Shields).

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