Boy name origins & meanings
- Irish : Sparrows
Family name origins & meanings
- Polish, Slovak (Gál), and Slovenian : from a personal name, Latin Gallus (see Gall), which was widespread in Europe in the Middle Ages. There are many pet forms and other derivatives of this personal name; the American surname could also be a shortening of any of them. See also Gall.
- Hungarian (Gál) : from the ecclesiastical name Gál, a short form of Gál(l)os, from Latin Gallus (see Gall).
- French : from the personal name Gallus (see 1), the name of a 6th-century bishop of Clermont.
- French : habitational name for someone from either of two places named Saint Gal, in Lozère and Puy-de-Dôme, or from Saint Jal in Corrèze.
- French : nickname from southern French gal ‘rooster’ (Old French jal, Latin gallus). As a French name, it appears to have been brought to the U.S. by Swiss bearers.
- Jewish (Israeli) : ornamental name from Hebrew gal ‘wave’.