Gale is a given name. It has seen masculine and feminine use consecutively in the United States. Gale as a man's name is from an English surname, ultimately from

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...

''gaile'' "jovial". As a woman's name, it is a short form of the biblical name

Abigail Abigail () was an Israelite woman in the Hebrew Bible married to Nabal; she married the future King David after Nabal's death ( 1 Samuel ). Abigail was David's second wife, after Saul and Ahinoam's daughter, Michal, whom Saul later marri ...

.behindthename.com Gale m.behindthename.com Gale f.
/ref> It can also be used as a form of the name Galen, a name derived from that of the ancient Greek physician, meaning "tranquil." It was almost exclusively a masculine name before 1935; in the later 1930s, it became a popular variant of the feminine name

. Feminine usage surpassed masculine usage in 1940, leading to a further decline in masculine usage, and Gale was predominantly a feminine name when it peaked in popularity in the later 1950s. Its popularity decreased rapidly in the 1960s, falling below rank 1,000 in 1971. In the 1990 census, it was ranked 4,209.

People called Gale

Men

Gale Gordon Gale Gordon (born Charles Thomas Aldrich Jr., February 20, 1906 – June 30, 1995) was an American character actor perhaps best remembered as Lucille Ball's longtime television foil—and particularly as cantankerously combustible, tightfiste ...

(1906–1995), American actor *

Gale Harold Gale Morgan Harold III (born July 10, 1969) is an American actor, known for his leading and recurring roles on ''Queer as Folk'', '' Deadwood'', ''Desperate Housewives'', ''Grey's Anatomy'', ''The Secret Circle'' and ''Defiance''. He also starred ...

(born 1969), American actor *

Gale McGee Gale William McGee (March 17, 1915April 9, 1992) was a United States Senator of the Democratic Party, and United States Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS). He represented Wyoming in the United States Senate from 1959 until ...

(1915–1992), United States Senator from

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...

Gale Sayers Gale Eugene Sayers (May 30, 1943September 23, 2020) was an American professional football player who was both a halfback and return specialist in the National Football League (NFL). In a relatively brief but highly productive NFL career, Sa ...

(1943–2020), American professional football player (Chicago Bears, 1965–1971) * Gale Wade (1929-2022), American baseball player

Women

* Gale Ann Hurd (born 1955), American film producer and screenwriter *

Gale Benson Gale Ann Benson (née Plugge; 4 November 1944 – 2 January 1972) was a British model, socialite and daughter of Conservative MP Leonard Plugge. She was stabbed and buried alive in Trinidad and Tobago. Life Benson was born 4 November 1944 in ...

(1944–1972), British model and socialite *

Gale Garnett Gale Zoë Garnett (born 17 July 1942) is a New Zealand–born Canadian singer best known in the United States for her self-penned, Grammy Award, Grammy-winning folk music, folk chart-topper, hit "We'll Sing in the Sunshine". Garnett has since c ...

(born 1942), Canadian singer/actress/writer *

Gale Norton Gale Ann Norton (born March 11, 1954) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 48th United States Secretary of the Interior under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006. A member of the Republican Party, she previously serve ...

(born 1954), 48th United States Secretary of the Interior *

Gale Sondergaard Gale Sondergaard (born Edith Holm Sondergaard; February 15, 1899 – August 14, 1985) was an American actress. Sondergaard began her acting career in theater and progressed to films in 1936. She was the first recipient of the Academy Awar ...

(1899–1985), American actress

Pseudonym

Gale Storm Josephine Owaissa Cottle (April 5, 1922 – June 27, 2009), known professionally as Gale Storm, was an American actress and singer. After a film career from 1940 to 1952, she starred in two popular television programs of the 1950s, '' My Litt ...

, pseudonym of Josephine Owaissa Cottle (1922–2009), American actress

Fictional characters

* Gale Boetticher, from the TV series '' Breaking Bad'' *

Gale Weathers Gale Weathers is a fictional character of the ''Scream'' film series, created by Kevin Williamson and portrayed by Courteney Cox. The character first appeared in '' Scream'' (1996), followed by five sequels: ''Scream 2'' (1997), ''Scream 3'' (20 ...

, from the ''Scream'' films * Gale Hawthorne, from ''

The Hunger Games ''The Hunger Games'' is a series of young adult dystopian novels written by American author Suzanne Collins. The first three novels are part of a trilogy following teenage protagonist Katniss Everdeen, and the fourth book is a prequel set 6 ...

'' * Gale, a supporting protagonist of the webcomic '' Acception'' * Gale, a female violet-backed starling in '' Angry Birds Stella'' and ''

The Angry Birds Movie ''The Angry Birds Movie'' (also known simply as ''Angry Birds'') is a 2016 computer-animated comedy film based on Rovio Entertainment's video game series of the same name, produced by Columbia Pictures and Rovio Animation, and distributed by S ...

'' *Gale, a female wind spirit from Frozen 2 *Gale, a Chromatic rarity brawler, from the

Supercell A supercell is a thunderstorm characterized by the presence of a mesocyclone: a deep, persistently rotating updraft. Due to this, these storms are sometimes referred to as rotating thunderstorms. Of the four classifications of thunderstorms ( ...

game

Brawl Stars ''Brawl Stars'' is a multiplayer online battle arena and third-person hero shooter video game developed and published by the Finnish video game company Supercell. It was released worldwide on December 12, 2018, on iOS and Android. The game f ...

People called Gale

Men

Women

Pseudonym

Fictional characters

References

See also