Definition of "Ashley"

Ashley

/ˈæʃli/

proper noun
countable and uncountable, plural Ashleys
1. One of ten villages and hamlets in England:
  1. A village in Cambridgeshire.
  2. A village and civil parish in Cheshire East, Cheshire (OS grid ref SJ7784).
  3. A village in Gloucestershire.
  4. A hamlet in East Hampshire district, Hampshire.
  5. A village in New Forest district, Hampshire.
  6. A village in Test Valley district, Hampshire.
  7. A hamlet in Kent.
  8. A village in Northamptonshire.
  9. A village in Staffordshire.
  10. A village in Wiltshire.
2. A surname from Old English derived from the places in England.
3. A male given name transferred from the surname.
  Quotations
  'There now, Scarlett! You admit it is true. What would you be doing with a husband like Ashley? 'Tis moonstruck they all are, all the Wilkes.'
  1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, chapter III, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944,
4. A female given name transferred from the surname.
  Quotations
  But when Krystal McConnell and Ashley Flynn were named deep in the heart of the '80s the thing was cuteness, feminine delicacy raised to an aesthetic paradigm. --- And everyone named according to a particular version of the pedigree fantasy. Ashley : transplanted Southern privilege, a destiny lying in sorority mixers and a marriage of health club memberships, state-of-the-art appliances and night courses in nouvelle cuisine.
  1999, Andrew Pyper, chapter 10, in Lost Girls
  I discovered that her full name was Margaret Lowell. I wasn't an expert on Earth names, but I still knew this was wildly inappropriate. She should have been called Lana Bellcurve or Ashley Brainsex or something.
  2013, Matt Haig, The Humans, Canongate, page 832
5. A number of places in the United States of America:
  1. A city in Illinois; named for railroad official Col. L. W. Ashley.
  2. A city, the county seat of McIntosh County, North Dakota; named for railroad official Ashley E. Morrow.
  3. A town in Indiana.
  4. A borough of Pennsylvania.
  5. A village in Michigan.
  6. A village in Ohio; named for Col. L. W. Ashley.
  7. A census-designated place in Missouri; named for the state's first lieutenant governor, William Henry Ashley.
  8. An unincorporated community in West Virginia; named for the local Ash family.
  9. An unincorporated community in Wisconsin.
6. A locality in New South Wales, Australia; named for one of the settlements in England.

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