SHELLEY

(female), occasionally (male) Transferred use of the surname, the most famous bearer of which was the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822). The surname is in origin a local name from one of the various places (in Essex, Suffolk, and Yorkshire) named in Old English as the ‘wood (or clearing) on (or near) a slope (or ledge)’. The name is now used almost exclusively for girls, in part perhaps as a result of association with Shirley (the actress Shelley Winters, 1922–2005, was born Shirley Schrift), and in part due to the characteristically feminine ending -(e)y.