Origin of the name Pagel

Research in surname dictionaries, gazetteers, and community histories has offered the following possibilities:

• A Platt Deutsche (Low German) variation of the first name Paul. The Baptism of Pagel Pagelsen is recorded in 17th century Denmark. Pagel also appears as a first name in 18th and 19th century Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

• An archaic term for the color red. In southern France, there is a plateau with reddish soil called Pagel. A reddish hued variety of carp, a fish, was called pagel.

• A no-longer used name for a river in East Prussia.

Since this family name is very rare among Jews it is possible that its origin comes from misspelling of the family name Vogel. In Yiddish and Hebrew both these Jewish surnames could be spelled like פגל. It is possible that during some paper work a mistake took place and the name was transliterated from Yiddish document into German (or Polish document) in a wrong way like Pagel. We must mention that this is only a speculation which should be investigated and verified by different means.

We assume that this family name for the first time appeared either in Galicia (and then spread from there to other areas) or in the territory of Posen area which was a part of Polish kingdom before 1772 and under the rule of Prussia after first partition of Poland. One could come across Jewish families with this surname mostly in Berlin area, Posen area, a family in Liepaya (Latvia), few families in Warsaw area and Galicia.