Steele
Usually a surname for someone connected with a stile or steep place, though it could also have been a nickname from the metal steel.
The #355 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 3,499 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The name has two main traditional explanations. In northern English and Scots usage, it is linked to Middle English and Old English words for a stile, and by extension to a place-name or topographic feature such as a stile or steep spot. Other writers also connected it with the metal steel, either as a nickname or personal name, from Old English and Old Norse words meaning “steel.”
History
The surname is well established in medieval England and Scotland, and the spellings Steel and Steele have long been used side by side. Nineteenth-century surname writers especially noted the northern English and Scots sense tied to a stile or hill spur. The form Steele is common in Britain and later spread widely in North America through migration.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Lower specifically glossed Steele as a northern pronunciation connected with a stile, and added that in Scotland it could also mean the spur of a hill.
From the historical record
“STEEL "I (Eng.) i a pers. name and nick- STEELE J name from the metal [O.E. st$U, stieU = O.N. stdl, steel] Robert StAc—Hund. Rolls. With that great campion Gray Steill [var. Steel].— Sir Gray Steill, 2789. 3 Dweller by a Stile [North. E. steel, a stile ; O.E. stiget]”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)