What does "Sawal" mean? and where did it originate?

Question:

What does "Sawal" mean? and where did it originate?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: The name is linked to at least 5 different countries/nationalities. The predominant group of immigrants is Galician (the part of Poland that went under Austrian control during the partition). There were also a few who show up from the Russian and Prussian partitions, but following the cluster the name appears predominantly Austrian. It is also showing up here and there in Germany. So regionally, the name spread from some epicenter and was easily disseminated throughout Germanic countries in central Europe.

There are a handful of people from Italy with this name. I would make an educated guess that they were from Alpine regions of Italy or from the NE corner near the Austrian border where the influence of Austria is strong.

Next it's showing up in immigration records as coming from Finland. Obviously the Polish/Austrian meaning of the name would be different than the Finnish version of the name.

I've found several immigrants to the US from Japan with the surname.

Finally, the name has a definite presence in India. I can't tell you which dialect because I'm simply looking at 100 year old records, but I'm sure if you did some research you could figure it out.

To know which of these applies to your family, you'll have to do some basic genealogy and trace your roots back to your immigrant ancestor.