Meale is a surname of English origin.
The name is traced to the Old English word mǣl, which meant “a mark” or “a sign”. It is believed that the surname first appeared as a nickname for an individual who was noted for a distinctive mark upon the body, or for someone involved in the making of signs or signposts.
Alternate interpretations describe Meale as a locational or topographical name. According to the Victorian etymologist C. Bardsley (1880), the name derives from the word meol, a sandbank or mole – a solid jetty extending into the water – and denotes a person who lived at such a feature. Place names that support this derivation include Eskmeols and Northmeols in Cumberland and Lancashire.
There is also a possibility that the modern surname is a truncated form of the medieval occupational name Meleman, itself a shortened version of Mealmonger, a supplier of what contemporary linguists would describe as fast food. However, this connection is not definitively proven.
The surname appears in a number of recorded variants, such as Meal, Mele, Meales, Meels, Meel, and Meals. No extant record links the name with the consumption of food, apart from a possible association with fishing.
Earliest documented instances of the name include Margery de Meoles, listed in the Hundred Rolls of Somerset in 1273; Elizabeth Meale, recorded at the church of St Peter-le-Poer in London on 11 February 1595; Anne Meal, noted at St Mary Abbots, Kensington, on 6 April 1676; and Edward Meals, found at St Sepulchre in London on 13 September 1720.
Although modern usage of the surname does not typically relate to culinary connotations, its historical origins reflect a rich tapestry of linguistic and geographical influences within England.