The GALE surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	15,193	2197	0.006	56
United States (1880 census)	5,672	1076	0.011	113
Change since 1880	+9521	-1121	-0.005	-57
Other Countries
Australia	3,148	487	0.019	193
United Kingdom	10,716	550	0.023	233

Top States for GALE by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
California	1,479	2081	0.004	44
Michigan	925	1111	0.009	93
Florida	904	2198	0.006	57
Illinois	869	1400	0.007	70
New York	787	2294	0.004	41
Top States for GALE by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Utah	587	444	0.026	263
Vermont	112	895	0.018	184
Delaware	104	1294	0.013	133
Idaho	169	969	0.013	131
Wyoming	56	990	0.011	113

Notes

Total is the total number of people with that surname.
Rank is the position in the list of names ordered by total (eg, a rank of 1 means that it's the most common name, and a rank of 10 means it's the tenth most common, etc).
Frequency is the percentage of people with that surname.
Per million people is the number of people with that surname per million of the population.

'A figure of zero indicates that we don't have data for this name (usually because it's quite uncommon and our stats don't go down that far). It doesn't mean that there's no-one with that name at all!

For less common surnames, the figures get progressively less reliable the fewer holders of that name there are. This data is aggregated from several public lists, and some stats are interpolated from known values. The margin of error is well over 100% at the rarest end of the table!

For less common surnames, the frequency and "per million" values may be 0 even though there are people with that name. That's because they represent less than one in a million of the population, which ends up as 0 after rounding.

It's possible for a surname to gain in rank and/or total while being less common per million people (or vice versa) as there are now more surnames in the USA as a result of immigration. In mathematical terms, the tail has got longer, with a far larger number of less common surnames.

Figures for top states show firstly the states where most people called GALE live. This obviously tends to be biased towards the most populous states. The second set of figures show where people called GALE represent the biggest proportion of the population. So, in this case, there are more people called GALE in California than any other state, but you are more likely to find a GALE by picking someone at random in Utah than anywhere else.

Classification and Origin of GALE

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Occupational Name

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the GALE surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the language spoken, or religion practised, by the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Data for ethnic origin relates to the region and country in which the GALE surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the ethnicity of the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Ethnic distribution of GALE in the USA

Classification	Total	Percent
White (Hispanic)	357	2.35
Mixed Race	254	1.67
Asian/Pacific	137	0.9
Native American/Alaskan	112	0.74
White (Caucasian)	12,935	85.14
Black/African American	1,398	9.2

Ethnic distribution data shows the number and percentage of people with the GALE surname who reported their ethnic background as being in these broad categories in the most recent national census.

Meaning of GALE in historical publications

A Gael or Scot; a stranger. Fingal, the white stranger, Dugal, the black stranger, alluding to the complexion or color of the hair. The root of Gall, or Gaul, is Hal, the sun, from which we have Gal, Gel, Gl, brilliant, bright, glorious. Greek, ??; Welsh, haul, Cornish British, houl, the sun. Ge, brilliant, and haul; Gehaul, Gaul, the ancient name of France--still called "sunny France."

Arthur, William (1857) An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain.

GALE. A Scottish H.R. See, however, Gael.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.

Similar names to GALE

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as GALE.

This does not necessarily imply a direct relationship between the names, but may indicate names that could be mistaken for this one when written down or misheard.