What does my name mean? For starters, I know it's German because my Schalm ancestors are from Germany. According to the Deutsches Wörterbuch (DWB), an etymological dictionary of the German language, "Schalm" is an old variant of "Schelm". And according to a random German-English dictionary, "Schelm" roughly means "joker, scoundrel, rogue, mischief-maker".
So basically Schalms are up to no good. This explains a lot!
There are other meanings, too. I was only able to roughly translate a few of the entries in the DWB, and came up with:
In addition,
Of further interest, apparently there is a Schalm coat of arms. I'd like to snag a picture of it somewhere when I feel up to looking. (A man in a shop that made and sold coats-of-arms and other genealogical knickknacks once told me this, and even described it to me. But I have forgotten the description, and that shop has moved or closed. At the time, I was too cheap to put out the $100 to get it made. That's probably why he's out of business.)
According to Wikipedia, "Kyle" was originally a surname. Wikipedia lists numerous possible meanings but no definitive one. The most common meaning you'll find on "baby name" sites is "(from the) narrow/strait/channel". Bottom line is, it means whatever my mother meant it to mean. And I haven't asked what that is.
However,
' Robert Chalmers of Ayrshire in his History of Scotland claimed the word kyle means "a woody region" '.So you could argue that my first and last name both mean the same thing.