Haley

Where the name comes from

• Old English (through an English place name and surname)
  Hay clearing: a woodland clearing where hay was grown
  hēg 'hay' + lēah 'woodland clearing'
  Haley started as an English family name. Families took it from places such as Hailey in Oxfordshire, Haley in Yorkshire and Heylee in Derbyshire. Most of these place names come from two Old English words, hēg 'hay' and lēah 'woodland clearing.' One exception is Highley in Devon, whose first part may come from hēah, 'high.' 'Hay meadow' is a popular, looser way of saying the same thing. Later, the surname came into use as a first name.
• English (southeastern dialect)
  A spelling of the surname Ayley, a form of Aylett
  Ayley, said with an 'h' sound added at the start
  This is a smaller, separate source of the surname. It applies only to some Haley families.
• Irish
  An English-style spelling of the Irish surname Mac Céile
  Mac Céile (related to McHale)
  In some Irish families, Haley stands for this Gaelic surname. The Irish surname is unrelated to the English place name.

Haley across traditions

• American naming. Haley was a top-50 girls' name in the 1990s. Social Security data ranks it No. 46 for girls born that decade, and it stayed in the top 50 in the 2000s. The spellings Hailey and Hayley rose along with it. Hailey later passed Haley and ranked No. 27 for the 2000s.
• English surnames. Haley belongs to a family of English surnames taken from place names. Families were named for the places where they lived or came from.
• Popular meanings. Some baby-name books and websites say Haley means 'hero' and comes from a Scandinavian language. No scholarly source supports this. It is a popular meaning, not the name's origin.

Who carried it

• Alex Haley (1921–1992): American writer of 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X' (1965) and 'Roots: The Saga of an American Family' (1976). The 1977 TV miniseries of 'Roots' was one of the most-watched programs in US history.
• Hayley Mills (born 1946): English actress. As a teenager she starred in Disney films and in 'Whistle Down the Wind,' which was based on a novel by her mother, Mary Hayley Bell. She was one of the first well-known people to have the name as a first name.

Forms in other languages

Hailey, Hayley, Hailee, Haylee, Haleigh, Hallie

Haley in letter-number systems

Hebrew, Greek and other traditions gave every letter a number, and read meaning into the totals. These are the counts, computed; the readings are inside the Innerverse.