Call
An English surname that may come from the Old English word for a man, or from a shortened form of Macall/McCall in some cases.
The #2,376 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 20,148 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The main English explanation is that Call may come from Old English calla, a word glossed as meaning something like 'man' or 'fellow,' related to the better-known terms ceorl and carl. Another possibility, noted by older surname writers, is that some bearers are from a shortened form of Macall or McCall, with the prefix dropped. Because the surname can arise in more than one way, its etymology is best treated as mixed and not fully certain.
History
The name appears in English records as a short, simple surname, and it is also found in forms that suggest later reduction from longer Gaelic names. In Scotland and Ireland, similar-looking spellings may overlap with MacCall/McCall traditions, so the surname does not always have a single origin. Modern bearers are therefore likely to have different family histories even when the surname is spelled the same way.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books sometimes debated whether Call was a native English word-name or simply a shortened Gaelic surname, which is a good reminder that very short surnames can hide multiple origins.
From the historical record
“'Calaiser,' a man of Calais. CALL. I. Probably IMacall, by the sup- pression of the first two letters. See Art. Mac. 2. A-Sax. call((, the same as carl or ceorl, a man. Ferguson. Calle. H.R. CALLAGHAN. CALLAHAN. The Irish O'Callaghan, CALLANDER. CALLENDER. A kind of lark was so called ; but a likelier deriva- tion…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom