Sometimes, the meaning of a surname is very clear. This is not the case with the Iseli surname. The different meanings given in this article are only hypotheses.

Name related to the occupation

These two interpretations are related to the fact that "Ise" is the Swiss German word for the High German "Eisen" (iron) and the ending "-li" is making the word a diminutive. This way, "Iseli" is meaning "a small piece of iron". Now it is quite hard to find out what a small piece of iron was for, more than 500 years ago.

An official controlling the measures: According to Welti [1], the "Ysenli" was a small metallic stick the "Iseler's" used to gauge the wine jugs of the landlords. Note that Isler is also a Swiss surname, but unlike the Iseli surname, it's not from Bern but from Z?rich.

A farrier: Since Sommer [2] thinks that an "Iseli" was a horseshoe.

The name of a person

Iseli could also be the name of a person, which got generalized into a family name. This is the theory of Zollinger [3]. However, no origin of the name is provided. It is unlikely Iseli is related to the name of Isidorus. This was a farmer living in Madrid around 1070, but he got known in Switzerland only when he was sanctified in 1628 [4].

In Deutsche Sippennamen you can read:

Isele, Iseli(n), alemanic form of Eisele, originating from the firstname Isanhart, Isangrim.

In Brechenmacher [6], this article is reformulated this way:

Iseli, Isele: coming from Eisele. Well represented in the alemanic area, e.g. Johannes dictus Ysenlin in Basel, 1341.

The name of a settlement

There are places called "Iseli" in Tsch?ppel (Huttwil) and Goldiwil (Thun). However it is hard to say whether the family name came from the name of the settlement or if the settlement got named with the family name of the people living there [7].

In the OKB [8] there is a mention about "Isel-" being an alteration of "Insel" (island). Also the thesaurus of the Swiss German language [9] mentions "Insle" with the variations "Isel", "Eisel" and "Insel". Further, in the OKB you can read the diminutives of "Insel": inseli, iseli, yszelj, yseli, Jsely, eiseli, ?sell, Jseli, Isli, Islli, inselli and Isely. Many of these spellings are now variations of our surname, but the surname variations appeared much later than these references.