Carley

Where Carley comes from

The dictionaries list Carley as a given name — a female given name from the Germanic languages, a less common spelling of Carly — but don't trace where it came from. The record below is what the SSA data shows.

  • Germanic
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1921
    First appearance
    #5,099 among girls, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1961
    Mostly girls from here
    Until now more boys than girls got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
  3. 1984
    Carley Fortune born
    Canadian writer
  4. 1994
    Carley Mijovic born
    Australian basketball player
  5. 1996
    Peak, #376
    703 babies named Carley — more than any year before or since.
  6. 2011
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #896.
In the dictionary
  • A female given name from the Germanic languages, a less common spelling of Carly.
Namesakes
  • Carley Fortune · Canadian writer, born 1984
  • Carley Mijovic · Australian basketball player, born 1994
  • Carley Ann McCord · American sports reporter, 1989–2019
  • Carley Garner · American commodity trader, born 1977

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.