Wallace (surname)
Wallace is a Scottish surname derived from the Anglo-Norman French waleis, which is in turn derived from a cognate of the Old English wylisc (pronounced "wullish") meaning "foreigner" or "Welshman." The original surname may have denoted someone from the former Kingdom of Strathclyde who spoke Cumbric, a close relative of the Welsh language, or possibly an incomer from Wales, or the Welsh Marches. The Kingdom of Strathclyde was originally a part of the Hen Ogledd, its people speaking a Brythonic language distinct from Scots Gaelic and the English derived from Lothian. In modern times, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the surname has been used as an Americanization of numerous Ashkenazic Jewish surnames.