A genuinely mixed-origin name — Mac Giolla, ‘son of the servant or devotee’, alongside a separate strand, Mac an Ghoill, ‘son of the foreigner’.
The Gill certificate.
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Mixed Origin · giolla, ‘servant, devotee’, and gall, ‘foreigner’
Gill carries more than one genuine root. The more common is Mac Giolla or Ó Giolláin, built on giolla, ‘servant’ or ‘devotee’ — in medieval Ireland often naming a religious devotee, a servant of a saint or holy figure, later shortened down to Gill. A separate, unrelated strand is Mac an Ghoill, ‘son of the foreigner’ or ‘son of the lowlander’. Petty's 1659 Census records families carrying the name across Donegal, Mayo, Galway and Longford.
Not Loch Gill, as it happens — two different old words, ‘servant’ and ‘foreigner’, converging on the one surname.
Irish form: Mac Giolla / Mac an Ghoill
