Giles

Giles derives from the Latin Aegidius, itself from Greek aigidíon meaning young goat or kid, the diminutive of aix (goat). The name’s animal association did not make it popular — its widespread medieval use resulted entirely from the cult of Saint Giles, who attracted veneration across Europe. Without the saint, the name would likely not have survived.

Saint Giles was a Greek hermit who settled in a forest near the Rhone River in southern France in the 8th century. He was sustained by the milk of a hind until a Visigoth king accidentally shot him while hunting the deer. The king, moved by the saint’s holiness, founded a monastery on the site that became the town of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, a major medieval pilgrimage site on the route to Santiago de Compostela. Giles was venerated as patron of the crippled and disabled.

The patronage tradition relates to Saint Giles accepting the wound from the arrow rather than seeking miraculous healing. According to hagiographic tradition, he was offered supernatural cure but declined, accepting his disability as divinely willed. This voluntary acceptance of physical suffering in imitation of Christ made him an appropriate patron for those unable to be cured. He became one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of saints invoked against specific illnesses in medieval Catholic practice.

Giles is outside the current US top 1000 but maintains consistent use in the United Kingdom, where it carries a particular association with professional, academic, and upper-middle-class contexts. The name’s strong medieval English use gave it a recognizable British character. In the US it is most often encountered in families with British heritage or as a family surname used as a first name. The philosopher and theologian Giles of Rome (c. 1243–1316) is the name’s most significant medieval intellectual bearer.