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).