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A number of name books state (as this site does), that the name element “gisil” as in Gisela, Gisbert, Gislinde means “hostage” or “pledge”. I would like to add an alternative theory, stating that the original meaning of “gisil” was “spear” rather than “pledge”.
The old Germanic word for spear was “gaiza”, which much later became “ger” as in Gerhard. (This is why “German” cannot refer to a “man” carrying a “ger”, by the way.)
“Gisil” is the Langobard word for “spear”.
The German word for “hostage” is “Geisel”. Spelt with a sharp s (looks a bit like a 3) it means “whip”. 150 years ago the two words were spelt the same, but they are of different origin. “Geisel” (pledge) is orinally Celtic (Old Irish “giall”, Cymric “gwystl”, Irish “gell”).
“Geißel” has the same root as “gaiza”: a verb meaning “to spring up”, cf. Old Nordic “geisl” (staff, ray). So “gisal” could also mean “(noble) offspring” and (influenced by the Celtic word mentioned above) then take the meaning “pledge”.
So according to this theory the original meaning of the name element “gisil” would have been “spear”, later people would hear “(noble) offspring” and finally (when the original meaning was long forgotten, because “spear” now was “ger”) it may have (mis)taken the meaning “pledge”.
During that last period no new names with this element were created: “The element ‘pledge’ was avoided in names” (Förstemann 647).

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This a taken from the following books:
Adolf Bach: Die deutschen Personennamen, Heidelberg 1952
dtv Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, München 1993
Ernst Förstemann: Altdeutsche Personennamen (1906)
Wilhelm und Jacob Grimm: Deutsches Wörterbuch
Henning Kaufmann: Altdeutsche Personennamen, Ergänzungsband (1968)
Wilfried Seibicke: Historisches Deutsches Vornamenbuch I-IV, 2000 ff.