Explore the Family Name Seal

The meaning of Seal

1. English: either a habitational name from Seal (Kent), Seale (Surrey), or Sele in Upper Beeding (Sussex), all of which probably derive from Old English sele ‘hall, building’ (though the Surrey placename may arise from Old English sēale, dative form of salh ‘willow’), or else a topographic name for someone who lived at a boggy patch (Kentish Middle English and Old English sele) or a hall. Compare Sale 1–2. 2. English: habitational name from Overseal or Netherseal (Derbyshire), probably from Old English scegel ‘small wood’. 3. English: topographic name for someone who lived by a willow copse or at a place marked by a willow or willows, from Middle English sele ‘willow’ (Old English sele), in northern England representing Old Norse selja and in southwestern England representing Old English (West Saxon) sealh. The name was probably interchangeable with the synonymous Middle English sale (Old English salh, Old Norse salr), and in some cases the surname may have functioned as a variant of Sale. In southwestern England initial S- was frequently voiced to Z-, as in the Wiltshire placename Zeals (from the plural form of Old English sealh). However, the medieval form of the placename is overwhelmingly in the plural, and this may also survive as Sales. 4. English: nickname for someone thought to resemble a seal, perhaps a plump or ungainly person, from Middle English sele ‘seal’ (Old English seolh). 5. English: perhaps a nickname for a maker of seals or signet rings, from Middle English and Old French seel ‘seal’ (from Latin sigillum), though there is no evidence that this name became hereditary. 6. Americanized form (translation into English) of Jewish Siegel.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.

What do people with the surname Seal have in common?

Spoiler alert: it's complicated. People with the same last name are usually no more genetically similar than a randomly sampled group of people from the same population. That said, people with the same surname are more likely to have similar ancestries than randomly sampled individuals. The reason is the tendency of people with similar cultural or geographical backgrounds to preferentially mate with one another. That's why people who share a surname may be more likely to share traits and tendencies in common than people within the general population. Check out the percentages below to see the prevalences of tastes, habits, and traits of people with your surname compared with prevalences among 23andMe users.