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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : nickname for a short, fat person, from Middle English bal(le) ‘ball’ (Old English ball, Old Norse b{o,}llr).
  • English : topographic name for someone who lived on or by a knoll or rounded hill, from the same Middle English word, bal(le), used in this sense.
  • English : from the Old Norse personal name Balle, derived either from ballr ‘dangerous’ or b{o,}llr ‘ball’.
  • South German : from Middle High German bal ‘ball’, possibly applied as a metonymic occupational name for a juggler, or a habitational name from a place so named in the Rhine area.
  • Dutch and German : short form of any of various Germanic personal names formed with the element bald (see Bald).
  • William Ball (1616–80) emigrated from Suffolk, England, to VA about 1650 and was one of the founders of Millenbeck on the Rappahannock.

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