Skip to main content

Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • French : topographic name for someone who lived on marshy land, from a diminutive of Old French jaille ‘marsh’, ‘mud’, now a regional term found mainly in western France. It may also perhaps have been a nickname with the sense ‘muddy’; in the Jura the word is applied to a cow with dark patches on its flanks. In the U.S., Jaillet is concentrated in MA.

Subscribe to Family Education

Your partner in parenting from baby name inspiration to college planning.

Subscribe