Haley
Usually a habitational surname from English place-names like Hailey or Hayley, meaning a clearing or meadow associated with hay.
The #917 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 8,155 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Haley is generally a surname taken from a place-name rather than from a personal characteristic. The English place-names behind it are usually explained from Old English elements such as hēg or hāg ('hay' or 'enclosure') plus lēah ('clearing, meadow, woodland clearing'), giving the sense of a hay clearing or similar open piece of ground. Older writers also linked some spellings to places like Hailey, Hayley, Haighley, or similar local names, so the surname can reflect more than one small English origin.
History
The name appears in medieval English records in several spellings, and nineteenth-century surname writers treated it as a local surname with more than one possible source. Some bearers in Yorkshire and elsewhere may descend from different places, which helps explain why the surname became widespread and not tied to a single family line. In the United States it spread further through immigration and internal migration, and the spelling Haley is now the standard form.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books explicitly note that Haley was spreading rapidly in the United States by the early 1900s.
From the historical record
“HALESWORTH. A town in Suffolk. HALEY. HALT. See Hayley. HALF ACRE. A local name; or perhaps A-Sax. licer-f(vgr, fair or beautiful-haired. HALFENAKED. Walter de Halfe- naked lived in Sussex in 1314. The mano- rial estate from which he derived his name is now called Halnaker. It is near Good- wood. HALFHEAD. Perhaps…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom