Ball Family History
Ball Name Meaning
English: from Middle English bal ball(e) ‘ball sphere globe round body’ (Old French balle or Old English beall(a)) a nickname for a short obese person. English: topographic name for someone who lived on or by a knoll or rounded hill from the same Middle English word bal(le) as in 1 above but applied topographically. English: from a Middle English adjective ball (weak form balle) in the sense ‘bald’ from ball ‘white streak bald place’. English: from Balle an Old Norse personal name found in placenames in England. The Scandinavian name may be for ballr ‘dangerous’ in an older sense of ‘brave’ or bǫllr ‘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. German: from a short form of any of various ancient Germanic personal names formed with the element bald (see Bald ).7: Americanized form of Dutch Bal .
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022
