Moseley
A locational surname meaning “from the mossy meadow” or “from Moseley/Mossley,” a place named for wet, mossy ground.
The #2,112 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 18,024 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Moseley is a place-based surname from English place-names such as Moseley or Mossley. The name is usually explained as coming from Old English words for “moss” or “marsh” plus “lea,” meaning a clearing, meadow, or pasture. In plain terms, it originally described someone who came from or lived near a mossy or marshy meadow.
History
The surname appears in English records in several spelling forms, including Mosley and Mozley. 19th-century surname writers linked it especially with places in Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, though they also noted that similar local place-names could have produced the surname independently in more than one area. In the United States, Moseley remained much less common than the shorter Mosley spelling.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Early surname scholars sometimes glossed it simply as “at the moss,” a handy way of saying “the person who lived by the marshy ground.”
From the historical record
“iVIORTYN, V. Mortin, Morten. MOSELEY I (Eng.) Bel. to Moseley = the MOSELY / Moss-Lea [O.E. m6s (= O.N. m6si), a marsh, moor, moss + ledK] MOSER, V. MOsser. MoisES (Gr.-Heb.-Copt.) Saved from the Water [Lat. Moyses, Gr. Muuir^t, Muo-^s, Heb. Mosheh; f. Gopt. »io, water, andowi/V,”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)