Ansley
Feminine · “most likely "hermitage clearing”
Ansley is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 11,878 girls against 290 boys since 1880.
Ansley began as a place: an English village name that turned into a family name, then crossed to America and became a first name. It keeps the same tidy two-beat shape as the surnames-turned-given-names it grew up beside, and it has been attached to a well-known Atlanta neighborhood since the early automobile era, which is part of why it took root in the American Southeast before it took root anywhere else.
How old is the name Ansley?
Ansley first appears in US birth records in 1960 — 65 years ago. The typical Ansley alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 12,000 people named Ansley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ansley most popular?
Ansley peaked in 2011, reaching #616 nationally. Today it ranks #1309, 693 places below that high. See the whole 2011 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Old English ānsetl + lēah to Ansley
The story of Ansley
Ansley is a village in Warwickshire, and a near-identical name, Annesley, sits in Nottinghamshire; both are recorded in the Domesday survey of the eleventh century. Families who lived at or came from such places carried the name away with them as a surname, in the ordinary English way. In the United States the surname traveled into first-name use — a habit that has given English speakers Ashley, Kinsley and Presley by exactly the same route — and Ansley followed. Its best-known American landmark, Ansley Park in Atlanta, was laid out under a developer's surname in the early twentieth century, and the name's deepest roots as a given name are still in that part of the country.
Meaningscholars disagree
most likely "hermitage clearing" — a solitary dwelling in a woodland glade
The English place names behind it appear in medieval records as Anesleia and Aneslei. Toponymists read the first part either as Old English ānsetl, 'hermitage' or 'solitary dwelling', or as a personal name beginning An-; the second part is lēah, a woodland clearing. Both readings are seriously held, so the choice is between 'hermit's clearing' and 'An's clearing'.
How the name formed
- Old English ānsetl + lēah
- Anesleia / Anesleimedieval place names
- AnsleyEnglish surname
- Ansleygiven name
Related forms: Ainsley · Aynsley · Ansleigh · Ainslie
Pronouncing Ansley
ANZ-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first. Most American speakers voice the s, so it comes out ANZ-lee; ANS-lee with a crisp s is also heard and neither is wrong.
Nicknames for Ansley
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
- 1960
- Most girls named
- 2011470 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #616reached in 2011
- Change vs 2024
- −2.3%170 in 2025, from 174
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.
Ansley in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ainsley in English — related form
- Aynsley in English — spelling variant
- Ansleigh in English — spelling variant
- Ainslie in Scots — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Georgia, Florida, North Carolina.
Ansleys among us
people named Ansley are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 9,455 born in 2025 was named Ansley
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Ansley
- #1309
- Ansley on the 2025 chart
- #772
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Ansley went to 170 girls in 2025, but Annsley 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 — 537 places above the chart.
- Ansley170
- Annsley18
About 1 girl in 8,549 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 9,455 for Ansley 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 Roxana test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ansley's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Roxana climbed just as high around 1987, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Roxana's path sketches the road Ansley is walking now.
Ansley 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
Where Ansley is headed
Ansley is easing off slowly — about 19% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Ansley beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ansley in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Follows a spelling pattern English speakers already know from Ashley, Ainsley and Kinsley, so it is usually written correctly once heard clearly.
- Two syllables with the stress up front — easy to say, easy to call across a yard, and it sits comfortably beside most one- and three-syllable middle names.
- A documented paper trail back to eleventh-century English records, which is more history than most surname-style first names can show.
- Rare enough in classrooms that it rarely needs a last initial, while still sounding entirely familiar in type.
- Works unaltered in any English-speaking country; nothing about it needs translating.
- It lives one consonant away from Ainsley and one vowel away from Ashley, and both are better known. Expect a lifetime of gentle corrections over the phone and on class lists.
- No short form has settled into general use. Families invent their own, which suits some people and leaves others wishing there were a ready-made everyday version.
- Its American history is regionally concentrated, so how ordinary it sounds will depend a good deal on where the child grows up.
- As a surname-first-name it reads slightly formal on paper — an asset on a résumé, occasionally a mismatch on a toddler.
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What they receive
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Ansley
Feminine · #1309 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ansleys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 12,000 people named Ansley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Ansley?
- Ansley is the most-used spelling in US records — 170 of the 188 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Annsley.
- How popular is the name Ansley in 2025?
- Ansley ranks #1309 among US girl names in 2025, with 170 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ansley?
- About 1 in every 9,455 US girls born in 2025 was named Ansley — 170 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ansley with classmates?
- Ansley will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ansley
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Chanel#1309 · Renley#1309 · Zaina#1309 · Emilie#1309 · Aylah#1309 · Hollyn#1309 · Zaya#1309 · Roxanne#1309
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ansley? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ansley and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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