Seal
A surname that can come from a place-name meaning “hall” or “dwelling by the lake,” or sometimes from the animal seal as a nickname.
The #3,797 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 33,141 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Seal is an English surname with more than one possible source. In some cases it is locational, from a place called Seal or a related form, with one Old English explanation connecting it to a “hall” or dwelling place, and another to a lakeside or water-side place-name. It may also be a nickname in a few lines of descent, especially where medieval spelling points toward the animal seal or a similar descriptive term.
History
The name appears in medieval English records in several spellings and may have arisen independently in more than one locality. Later surname writers also connected some examples with specific place-names in northern England. Because the word is short and common, different families named Seal do not necessarily share one origin.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Nineteenth-century surname books sometimes linked Seal to both place-names and to the animal seal, which is a good reminder that one short surname can hide several different origins.
From the historical record
“Grove [O.E. sik, lake, s^a.+grdf, grcive] SEAL \ (Eng.) Bel. or Seal ; or Dweller at ot SEALE I by a Hall [O.E. sele, sal, a hall] fela ]>c6ra wses... j)e jiaet win-reced, gest-je/e gyredon, Cp.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)