Updated June 9, 2019

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Family name origins & meanings

  • English : nickname for a silly person, from Middle English golle ‘unfledged bird’. There is evidence of a female personal name Golla and it is possible that this also may have given rise to the surname.
  • German and Swiss German : unflattering nickname from dialect goll ‘bullfinch’, in the sense ‘simpleton’; or perhaps a variant of Gollmann (see Goleman 2).