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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Irish or Scottish : reduced form of McFaul.
  • English : variant of Fall 2.
  • South German : from a byname for a weakling, from Middle High German vūl, voul ‘frail’, ‘decayed’, ‘foul’, ‘weak’. Later the term took on the meaning ‘lazy’ and in some cases the surname may have arisen from this sense.

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