Gillen

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A family name of Irish or Scottish origin, borne by people descended from a bearer of that surname
2. An Irish or Scottish surname carried by individuals and families across the English-speaking world
3. A proper name of Irish or Scottish derivation used as a family surname by many people

Etymology: In Dutch, "gillen" is an ordinary verb meaning to shriek or yell, the kind of sound a person makes in sudden fright or pain. Its Middle Dutch form, "ghillen," had the same sense, and it descends from a Proto-Germanic verb reconstructed as "gellaną," which meant to make a loud, piercing cry. English shares this ancestry. Old English "giellan" (later "yellen" and then "yell") came from the same root, so "yell" and the Dutch verb are close relatives that have drifted apart in sound and spelling. The English word settled on a sense of loud calling, while the Dutch verb kept the sharper, higher quality of a shriek. "Gillen" itself is not a standard English word, so the sense given here is the Dutch one. The shared origin with "yell" is well established, though the exact vowel history of each branch is more tangled than this summary shows.