Family name origins & meanings
- Variant of North German Pahlen, a topographic name from Middle Low German pāl ‘post’, ‘stake’, ‘boundary marker’.
- French : variant of Palin.
- Americanized spelling of Belgian Peelen, a habitational name for someone from either of two places called Peel, in North Brabant and Limburg.
- An early (1630s) immigrant from Nijkerk, Netherlands, to Rensselaerswijck, NY named Peelen was the ancestor of the present-day bearers of this surname. Palenville in Ulster Co., NY is named from the same source.