Shelley
A habitational surname from English places named Shelley, meaning “shelf- or ledge-meadow.”
The #2,533 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 21,591 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Shelley is an English place-name surname. Historical forms such as Scelfledh point to Old English elements meaning “shelf” or “ledge” plus “meadow” or “lea,” so the name originally referred to a meadow on or by a shelf-like slope. It is associated with several places in England, including Suffolk and Yorkshire, and the surname was taken from one of these localities.
History
The surname is recorded from medieval England and was long associated with families from places called Shelley in Suffolk, Essex, Yorkshire, and elsewhere. Older genealogists sometimes tried to give it a Norman-French origin, but nineteenth-century surname scholars generally treated it as native English and habitational. The best-known bearer is the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose surname reflects this English place-name tradition.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One medieval form linked to Shelley is Scelfledh, showing how much the spelling of English place-names could change over time.
From the historical record
“IhIlITOE I v-thecommoner form Shillito(e. SHELLEY "I (Eng.) Bel. to Shelley, the A.-Sax. S H E LLY f Scelf-ledh = the Shelf- or Ledge- Lea [O.E. scelf, scylf{e, a shelf, ledge, also a crag -I- /erfft, a lea] Shelley, Suff., was Scelfledh c. a.d. 972 and Shelley a.d. 1321-2 ; Shelley, Yorks, situated on a hill, was…”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)