Cowley
A place-name surname meaning “from Cowley,” originally used for someone who came from one of several English places of that name.
The #5,881 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 52,615 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Cowley comes from English place names such as those in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Middlesex, and elsewhere. The place-name is generally understood as Old English elements meaning “cow” and “wood/clearing,” or in some cases “cow meadow,” so the surname originally identified a person by where they lived or came from. In medieval records it appears with forms like de Couele or de Cowley, showing its locational use clearly.
History
The surname is well attested in medieval England and was already being used by the 12th and 13th centuries in records cited by surname scholars. It remained especially associated with southern and central English counties, then spread more widely through later migration, including to London and overseas. The same surname was also borne by notable figures such as the poet and dramatist Abraham Cowley.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The surname is shared by several separate English place-names, so not every Cowley family necessarily comes from the same ancestral village.
From the historical record
“COWLEY. Parishes, kc. in cos. Glou- cester, Middlesex, Oxford, and Salop. COWLING. Places in Suffolk, Kent, and Yorkshire. COWLSTOCK. Probably Calstock, co. Cornwall. See however Eng. Surn. i. 203. COWNDON. Coundon, places in Dur- ham and Warwick.”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom