I went to high school with a lot of people with the surname “Scales.” Why would this word end up as someone’s surname? I’m assuming it’s English in origin because the word scales is an English word. It has three meanings. 1. The scales on a fish. 2. A measuring scale (as in the scale of justice.) 3. Musical scales (as in, a B-flat major scale.) It doesn’t seem like any of these things would logically find their way into someone’s surname.
I wonder if there’s ever been a Major in the military with that name. He would have to be addressed as “Major Scales.” With all the people with that name, there has to be someone.
It’s an English word now, but it has origins elsewhere, so there’s no particular reason why the name need be English in origin.
There’s an Italian surname Scala, which goes back quite a long time. The family crest bears a ladder - which I think is the meaning of the root word for scale (as in measuring - ladders are graduated at intervals - but also as in climbing - scale a wall)
It might be derived from Latin, although right now I can’t find my Latin dictionary, urgh.
FWIW, there’s the percussionist Steven Scales, who put the “tom” in the Tom Tom Club. Being a percussionist, he probably never had to practice any scales…
The Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames lists two possibilities: (1) [dweller by the] huts or sheds (Old Norse skáli > Middle English scale or scole); (2) ultimately the French place-name Escalles, which is in Normandy and lo and behold also comes from Old Norse skáli, ultimately from an Indo-European root *(s)keu- meaning “to cover, to enclose.” Incidentally, *keu- (no “s”) gives us “house,” I gather.
I don’t see why it couldn’t be a corruption of the ladder / school word, or a particularly squamous ancestor, but the above is what the authorities say.