Plumley
A habitational surname from Plumley in Cheshire, with some forms influenced by the nearby surname Plummer.
The #7,880 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 73,511 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Plumley is chiefly a place-name surname, meaning someone who came from Plumley, a township in Cheshire. The place-name itself is old English in form, likely built from a personal name plus a word for a clearing or meadow, though the exact deeper origin is not certain from these excerpts. Some historical spellings and related forms were also pulled toward Plummer, which led to spelling variation such as Plumbly and Plumly.
History
Nineteenth-century surname dictionaries consistently treat Plumley as a local surname from the Cheshire township of Plumley in the parish of Great Budworth. The name appears in several variant spellings, especially Plumly and Plumbly, and Bardsley notes that the inserted b is a common excrescence in spelling. The surname is not especially common, but it has persisted in English-speaking countries and is recorded in the modern United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Bardsley specifically comments that the extra b in Plumbly is a spelling intrusion rather than part of the original name.
From the historical record
“PLUMBLY PLUMLEY PLUMBRIDGE for Plumridge, q.v. PLUMER 1 (A.-Fr.-Lat.) i Feather-Dress- PLUMMER fER [Fr. plumier; if. plume, a feather, plume, Lat. pluma] 2 Plumber [Fr. plomUer ; f. plonib, Lat.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)