Mosely
A surname usually from a place name meaning “mossy meadow” or “marsh clearing.”
The #9,506 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 90,303 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Mosely is a variant spelling of Moseley/Mosley, a locational surname from a place called Moseley or Mossley. The name is usually explained from Old English elements meaning “moss,” “marsh,” or “moor” plus “leah,” meaning a clearing or meadow. In other words, it likely originally described someone who lived near a mossy or marshy clearing.
History
19th- and early-20th-century surname writers treated Mosely as one of several spellings of the Moseley/Mosley place-name family, and linked it to small English localities of that type. The form appears in records as an alternate spelling rather than a separate surname in its own right. It also shows up in regional surname distributions in England and in later American records.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Many English surnames ending in -ley come from Old English leah, a word for a clearing, meadow, or woodland opening.
From the historical record
“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, to deliver]”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)