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Re: Keile/Kayla/etc - Yiddish?
Interesting! I don't see Abigail as likely because the Yiddish-speakers I know now would prounounce that name as ah-vee-guy-ul, but maybe it was pronounced differently in Germany?
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The main difference in the German (non-Jewish) pronunciation of Abigail is the letter b, the last two syllables may be contracted into one, giving /a-bee-giel/ as the result. Germanic Geila comes from a completely different root (by searching the submitted names for geil* you can find a few rare names with that root) and I don't think it is relevant here. It was never big in Old High German and later acquired the new meaning "horny" leading to the death of names containing that name element.
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