In Afrikaans “kerel” (kêrel) still means “guy, bloke, young man”. Interestingly, where as the original sense of English ‘carl’ (ceorl) was “peasant, ordinary man of low social class” the same source of the word when on to form the word for “king” in other languages mainly influence via the name of the Frankish ruler Charlemagne:
Hungarian: király
Lithuanian: karalius
Polish: król
Russian: коро́ль (korólʹ)
Turkish: kral (Ottoman Turkish: قرال)
Old English Wordhord 
In Dutch, we have ‘krolse kat’ (a cat in heat’), which is related to ‘krijsen’ (screeming). Not sure about if carl is related to krols or krol.
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I was thinking it might be related to “ceorl” (where we get the word churl), used in Old English to describe a man of low social class.
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In Afrikaans “kerel” (kêrel) still means “guy, bloke, young man”. Interestingly, where as the original sense of English ‘carl’ (ceorl) was “peasant, ordinary man of low social class” the same source of the word when on to form the word for “king” in other languages mainly influence via the name of the Frankish ruler Charlemagne:
Hungarian: király
Lithuanian: karalius
Polish: król
Russian: коро́ль (korólʹ)
Turkish: kral (Ottoman Turkish: قرال)
A ‘carl-cat’ can look at a king – indeed! 😉
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Very interesting – thanks!!
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