Family name origins & meanings
- English : topographic name for someone who lived by a stone-built wall, e.g. one used to fortify a town or to keep back the encroachment of the sea (Old English w(e)all, from Latin vallum ‘rampart’, ‘palisade’).
- Northern English : topographic name for someone who lived by a spring or stream, northern Middle English wall(e) (Old English (Mercian) wæll(a); compare Well).
- Irish : re-Anglicized form of de Bhál, a Gaelicized form of de Valle, the name of a Norman family established in Munster and Connacht.
- German : topographic name for someone who lived by a defensive wall, Middle High German wal.
- German : variant of Wahl 2.
- German : from a short form of the personal name Walther.
- Swedish : ornamental name from Swedish vall ‘grassy bank’, ‘pasture’, ‘grazing ground’, or in some cases a habitational name from a place named with this element.