The surname could have originated in several different ways: as an ironic nickname for someone with a haughty demeanor, a nickname for someone who resembled a king in appearance, a designation for someone who won a competition, etc. A Slovak cognate of the surname is Kráľ. An Anglicised and Germanised version of the surname is Kral. Notable people with the surname include:
Text adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Giles Laurent (see Commons), Wikimedia Commons.