Ashley (name)

Ashley is an English unisex given name, originally a place name and surname. It is derived from the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) words æsc (ash) and lēah (meadow, forest clearing).

Ashley was originally used only for male children. It is a surname that turned into a first name. It was first recorded as a male given first/middle name in the 16th century and remained only male until around 350 years later.^[1] It was popularized by Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury 1621–1683 (also known as Lord Ashley). Uses of the boys' name in popular culture are Ashley Wilkes from 1939's Gone with the Wind and Ash Williams (Ashley James Williams) from the 1981 film The Evil Dead.

Ashley in the United Kingdom remains predominantly male, ranking at #40 in 1996 for boys and staying within the top 100–300 male names given each year.

Ashleigh is the traditional spelling of the female form, with Ashley remaining traditionally male across the country. Although Ashley is sometimes used for British females, it has dropped off the top U.K. female name charts since 2011.^[2]

In the United States, Ashley gained popularity as a female first name in the late 20th century, outranking boys' usage by the 1980s and reaching #1 for girls' usage in 1991. Its rise in popularity is attributed to the female soap opera character Ashley Abbott on The Young and The Restless in 1982.

Ashley has not appeared in the top 1000 American baby boy names since 1994.^[3]

As with many names that achieve popularity, a number of spellings of Ashley emerged. The United States Social Security Administration has records^[4] of many different spellings, including Ashley, Ashleigh, Ashlee, Ashlie, Ashlyn, and foreign-looking variants such as Ashlé (pseudo-French) for example, Ashlé Dawson.

People

Animals

• Ashley Whippet (c. 1971 – 1985), the first famous disc dog

In fiction

• Ashley, a character in the cartoon series School for Vampires
• Ashley, a character in the Warioware series
• Ashley, a character in the video game Until Dawn
• Ashley Abbott, a character in the America soap opera The Young and the Restless
• Ashley Banks, a character in the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
• Ashley Hammond, the yellow ranger in Power Rangers Turbo and Power Rangers In Space
• Ashley Juergens, a character in the teen drama The Secret Life of the American Teenager
• Ashley Kerwin, a character in Canadian drama series Degrassi: The Next Generation
• Ash Ketchum, the protagonist of the Pokémon television series
• Ashley Marin, a character in the teen drama Pretty Little Liars
• Ashley Magnus, a character in the science fiction-fantasy series Sanctuary
• Ashley Peacock, a character from the British soap opera Coronation Street
• Ashley Riot, Male Sole Playable Character In Vagrant Story PS1 Game
• Ashley Mizuki Robbins, heroine in the Another Code video game series
• Ashley Spinelli & The Ashleys, characters in the children's television series Recess
• Ashley Wilkes, central character from the novel Gone With the Wind
• Ash Williams, the protagonist of the Evil Dead film series
• Ashley Williams (Mass Effect), female soldier in the Mass Effect video game series named after the Evil Dead character
• Ashley Winchester, the main character of the role-playing video game Wild ARMs 2
• Ask Ashley, comedy skit appearing on the Nickelodeon show, All That
• Ashley Bernitz, an antagonist in the game Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War

Popularity of the female name in the United States

^[5]

See also

• Aisling (given name), from Irish (Gaelic); pronounced /ˈæʃlɪn/ ASH-lin) or /ˈæʃliːn/ ASH-leen)
• Leigh, Old English for "a woodland clearing"
• Lee (given name)
• Lee (English surname)

References