Hyland Family History

Irish: Anglicized form either of Gaelic Ó hAoileáin (see Heelan) or Ó Faoláin (see Whelan). Excrescent final -d is often added to names Anglicized from Irish especially when this brings them closer to an English word (see below). English: topographic name for someone who lived either on a piece of enclosed land or a piece of high land since Middle English he(i)gh hege hey(e) can represent either Old English gehæg geheg ‘fence enclosure’ or Old English hē(a)h ‘high’.

English: perhaps a habitational name from Hillam (Farm) in Flixton (Lancashire) from Old English hyll ‘hill’ + land ‘land’. This surname was taken to Northern Ireland where it appears in the 18th century as Hillan Hillen. Americanized form of Norwegian Hylland and Høyland (see Hoyland).

Americanized form of Norwegian Hjalland: habitational name from the farm name Hjalland in Telemark a compound of Old Norse hjallr ‘terrace ledge’ and land ‘(piece of) land farmstead’. Americanized form of Swedish Högland (see Hogland) or of some other similar (like-sounding) surname or an adoption of the cognate English surname (see 2 above).

This surname is today also found in Sweden though it is very rare there; it was adopted in the early 20th century by a brother of a Swedish emigrant to the US bearing the Americanized surname Highland (or according to some sources Hyland).7: Americanized form of German Heiland. Compare Highland.