Gal

surname · Latin script

Meaning: nickname from southern French gal ‘rooster’ (Old French jal, Latin gallus)

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Gal is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country. In Hungary it is the 25th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • HUHungary≈1 in 2.1K(inferred from the name graph)
  • RORomania≈1 in 3.7K
  • SKSlovakia1 in 2.7K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

France (inferred from the name graph)

≈8,900 people, est.

Sources
134 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 2.1K (inferred from the name graph)

Hungary, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Gál in HU Hungary, SK Slovakia, FR France.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

nickname from southern French gal ‘rooster’ (Old French jal, Latin gallus). As a French name, it appears to have been brought to the U.S. by Swiss bearers.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Gal counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Gal is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
FR France—≈8,900 est.≈1 in 7.6K181Gál2
RO Romania#244≈5,700 est.≈1 in 3.7K—Gal50
HU Hungary#25≈4,600 est.≈1 in 2.1K24KGál134
IL Israel—≈2,300 est.≈1 in 3.8K—Gal20
SK Slovakia#1221,9871 in 2.7K2KGál53

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Nyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025); JÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Gal is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Belgium, Spain

    Also written Gál, Ga-L, Ga'L, Ĝàl, Gàl

  • Hebrew given name9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Israel, United States, Romania, Morocco

    Also written גל, גאל, Gel, Gell, Gl

  • Spanish surname15 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina, United States, Mexico, Philippines

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Gál, Gal', Ğål, Gål, Gäl

  • Croatian surname15 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, Serbia, United States, Bulgaria

    Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovenian

    Also written Gál, Гал, Gâl

  • Hindi surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Malaysia, Pakistan

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Gál, Gäl, Gâl, Gàl, Gǻl

  • a separate name5 spellings in the group

    Also written Gàl, Gäl, Gál

59 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Gal is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • from a personal name, Latin Gallus (see Gall), which was widespread in Europe in the Middle Ages. There are many pet forms and other derivatives of this personal name; the American surname could also be a shortening of any of them. See also Gall.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • habitational name for someone from either of two places named Saint Gal, in Lozere and Puy-de-D6me, or from Saint Jal in Correze.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • from the ecclesiastical name Gal, a short form of Gdl(l)os, from Latin Gallus (see Gall).

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • from the personal name Gallus (see 1), the name of a 6th-century bishop of Clermont.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In French, Le gal est une ancienne unité de mesure d’accélération employée en géodésie et en géophysique valant 10 -2 mètre par seconde carrée. Elle tire son nom de celui de Galilée (1564-1642). Symbole Gal.

    as a name2500 noms propres devenus communs : dictionnaire étymologique (éponymes, antonomases et hypallages)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

05001000150020002500Ge Hong, b. 284Uziel Gal, b. 1923Grace Chang, b. 1933Ge You, b. 1957Eric Kot, b. 1966Ge Fei, b. 1975Dora Venter, b. 1976Meytal Gal Suisa, b. 1987Christine Ko, b. 1992Kal So-won, b. 2006
  • Ge Hongb. 284CNnot in their usual name4th century Chinese scholar and philosopher
  • Uziel Galb. 1923DEIsraeli firearm designer (1923-2002)
  • Grace Changb. 1933CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actress and singer (1933–2026)
  • Ge Youb. 1957CNnot in their usual nameChinese actor
  • Eric Kotb. 1966CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor and singer
  • Ge Feib. 1975CNnot in their usual nameChinese badminton player
  • Dora Venterb. 1976HUnot in their usual nameHungarian pornographic actress
  • Meytal Gal Suisab. 1987ILIsraeli actress and model
  • Christine Kob. 1992USnot in their usual nameTaiwanese-American actress
  • Kal So-wonb. 2006KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actress

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 72 sources across 35 countries.

Official registers attesting Gal
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1991181—

Reference works 8

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

Where does the name Gal come from?
nickname from southern French gal ‘rooster’ (Old French jal, Latin gallus). As a French name, it appears to have been brought to the U.S. by Swiss bearers. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
What does the name Gal mean?
Recorded meaning: nickname from southern French gal ‘rooster’ (Old French jal, Latin gallus).
In which country does Gal have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 8.9 thousand people named Gal in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gál.
What are other forms of the name Gal?
In the etymology graph, Gallo, Gall and Galit are forms of the same name in other languages.
How common is the name Gal?
In Slovakia, the national register counted 1,987 people named Gal in 1995, about 1 in 2.7 thousand residents.
How common is Gal compared with other names?
In Hungary, Gal is the 25th most common surname of 88,284 surnames recorded there.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/gal

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Gal” — the 25th most common surname in Hungary. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Gal parses inside a full name →