Annsley
Feminine · “An's clearing”
Somewhere between Ansley and Annsley an English place name acquired a woman. The original first element is an Old English personal name, not the name Ann at all, but the spelling with two n's makes Ann visible inside the word, and once a reader sees it there it cannot be unseen.
How old is the name Annsley?
Annsley first appears in US birth records in 1979 — 46 years ago. The typical Annsley alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 900 people named Annsley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Annsley most popular?
Annsley peaked in 2015, reaching #2712 nationally. Today it ranks #6325, 3,613 places below that high. See the whole 2015 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aneslei to Annsley
The story of Annsley
Annesley in Nottinghamshire and Ansley in Warwickshire both gave surnames, and the surname reached the United States with English settlement. Its move into American girls' names came through the South in the 1990s and 2000s, part of the same traffic that produced Ainsley, Kinsley and Presley. The doubling of the n is the interesting step: it does nothing audible, and it converts a meaningless first syllable into a recognizable woman's name, which makes the whole word feel like it was assembled from parts rather than inherited. Folk re-analysis of this kind is how a great many English words got their modern shapes. Annsley's best year on record is 2015.
Meaningscholars disagree
An's clearing, from an Old English personal name plus leah
The English places called Ansley and Annesley are usually explained as an Old English personal name, or the word for a solitary or hermit's site, plus leah, a woodland clearing. The identification with the name Ann is a later reading produced by the spelling and is not part of the etymology. Ann itself is a separate name entirely, from Hebrew Hannah, grace.
How the name formed
- Aneslei
- Annesley
- Ansley
- Annsley
Related forms: Ansley · Annesley · Ainsley
Pronouncing Annsley
ANZ-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the n and s running together. The doubled n adds nothing to the sound; Ansley and Annsley are identical aloud.
Nicknames for Annsley
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1979
- Most girls named
- 201565 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2712reached in 2015
- Change vs 2024
- −18.2%18 in 2025, from 22
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Annsley in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ansley in English — spelling variant
- Annesley in English — spelling variant
- Ainsley in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Tennessee, Georgia, Texas.
Annsleys among us
people named Annsley are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 89,293 born in 2025 was named Annsley
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Annsley
- #6325
- Annsley on the 2025 chart
- #772
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Annsley went to 18 girls in 2025, but Ansley is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 188, which makes it the 772nd most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,553 places above the chart.
- Ansley170
- Annsley18
About 1 girl in 8,549 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 89,293 for Annsley itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Mariaguadalupe test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Annsley's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Mariaguadalupe climbed just as high around 1996, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Mariaguadalupe's path sketches the road Annsley is walking now.
Annsley sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Annsley beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Annsley in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A genuine English place and surname behind it, with a documented second element.
- The spelling supplies Ann and Annie as ready-made classical short forms.
- Fits neatly beside Ainsley, Kinsley and Ansley without being any of them.
- Ansley and Ainsley are both more common and will be written instead.
- The Ann inside the name is an accident of spelling, not an etymology.
- The -ley surname family is closely dated to the last thirty years of American naming.
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Annsley
Feminine · #6325 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Annsleys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Annsley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Annsley?
- Annsley is one of 2 recorded spellings. Ansley is the more common one — 170 births in 2025 against 18 for Annsley.
- How popular is the name Annsley in 2025?
- Annsley ranks #6325 among US girl names in 2025, with 18 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Annsley?
- About 1 in every 89,293 US girls born in 2025 was named Annsley — 18 in all.
- Will my child share the name Annsley with classmates?
- Annsley will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Annsley
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kaye#6325 · Doria#6325 · Karolyn#6325 · Rosaleen#6325 · Roni#6325 · Darian#6325 · Svetlana#6325 · Fanny#6325
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Annsley? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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