Neil is a given name of Gaelic origin. The name is a perfection of 'Niall', perhaps erived from the vocative form, 'Nèill'. It comes into French and Norman-Latin as Nigell -us, originally pronounced almost identically. The name, like many Gaelic names, was borrowed into Norse, where it became Njál. The original Gaelic meaning of Neil is unclear, but Champion or Cloud are the most popular meanings assigned to it.