Is the name "Wahl" of Irish descent?

Question:

Is the name "Wahl" of Irish descent?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: It could be Irish, but it would only be a reasonable idea if someone had played with the spelling through the years (like Sen John Kerry who is actually of Czechoslovakian Jewish background and his grandfather picked the name Kerry to sound more like his neighbors in Boston.)

Everyone forgets that names don't come from places, people do. People carry their names with them wherever they go. People also change their names when circumstances warrant. I can't say that the spelling Wahl is Irish, but I do believe there can be people with the name Wahl who are Irish. The question is then "how did they get that name?"

Maybe it was originally spelled Wall (which could well be Irish) and someone changed one letter because of issues with not getting mail on their route because of confusion with other families of the same name. Happened often in the last 120 years.

Another possibility is that someone name Wahl who was German left that country 300 years ago and resettled in Ireland, but kept their German spelling for a few generations. Then their descendents brought it to another country. They were Irish and rightly told others that they were Irish. Maybe their name has German roots, but at that point it's an Irish name because it belongs to an Irishman.

The only way to know where your "name came from" is to find the people who brought it here using good research to find out from whence they came...and from whence their ancestors came...