Bartley
Masculine · “son of Talmai”
The name behind this one is not a name at all. Bartholomew is a patronymic — son of Talmai — and it tells you who the man's father was and nothing whatever about him. What he himself was called has not survived, which makes him one of the twelve apostles identified entirely by somebody else.
How old is the name Bartley?
Bartley first appears in US birth records in 1886 — 139 years ago. The typical Bartley alive today was born around 1960, making them about 65 years old. About 1,100 people named Bartley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Bartley most popular?
Bartley peaked in 1886, reaching #647 nationally. See the whole 1886 chart.
Where it comes from
From bar Talmai to Bartley
The story of Bartley
He is traditionally said to have been flayed alive, and one painter took that to a conclusion nobody expected. In the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo painted him seated near the center of the Last Judgment holding a knife in one hand and his own skin in the other — and the face on the empty skin is a distorted self-portrait of the painter. Nobody has satisfactorily explained why. The usual readings are exhaustion, self-loathing, or a joke about what fresco painting had done to him, and the figure has been argued about since it was unveiled.
Meaning
son of Talmai
Aramaic, and the construction is unambiguous. Talmai is a genuine name appearing elsewhere in the Hebrew scriptures; the man carrying the patronymic has no recorded personal name of his own.
How the name formed
- bar Talmai
- Bartholomew
- Bartley
Pronouncing Bartley
BART-lee
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The spelling causes no trouble and the name is never mispronounced.
Nicknames for Bartley
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
- 1886
- Most boys named
- 196056 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #647reached in 1886
- Change vs 2007
- +20.0%6 in 2021, from 5
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.
Bartleys among us
people named Bartley are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Bartley sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Bart works as a short form and needs no explaining.
- It belongs to the surname-name tradition without being a common example.
- The spelling and the sound agree completely.
- The generation that used it is now very old.
- It is one letter from Bartlett and Barkley and gets confused with both.
- The meaning is a statement about somebody else's father.
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Bartley
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Bartleys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Bartley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Bartley in 2025?
- Bartley is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Bartley with classmates?
- Bartley will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More B names
The most-given names starting with B, all years combined.
Brian#339 · Benjamin#11 · Brandon#261 · Bryan#336 · Bruce#536 · Billy#1068 · Bobby#1097 · Bradley#403
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Bartley? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Bartley and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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