Riléy
surname · Latin script
Riléy is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Jamaica it is the 51st most common surname. Recorded meaning: * From Ryley in Lancashire, from Old English ryge (“rye”) + leah (“clearing, meadow”). Equivalent to rye + -ley (“lea”). * Variant of Reilly, from Irish Ó Raghallaigh (see O'Reilly).
- KNSt. Kitts & Nevis1 in 979(measured from records)
- JMJamaica≈1 in 1.6K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 1.7K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #635 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 558 (measured from records)
- 1 in 979 (inferred from the name graph)
133,872 people, 2010
of 19M surnames, spellings grouped
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
St. Kitts & Nevis
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Riley in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 5 more.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)- Ryleyin(measured from records)
- Old Englishryge“rye”(measured from records)
- IrishÓ(measured from records)
* From Ryley in Lancashire, from Old English ryge (“rye”) + leah (“clearing, meadow”). Equivalent to rye + -ley (“lea”). * Variant of Reilly, from Irish Ó Raghallaigh (see O'Reilly).
Cited for this meaning 6
- A concise dictionary of first names
- DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
- Il grande libro dei nomi per bebè. Significato, origini, curiosità. Oltre 7000 nomi per bambine e bambini Significato,…
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wiktionary
Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Riléy counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #174 | 133,872 | 1 in 2.5K | 134K | Riley | 558 |
| GB United Kingdom | #135 | ≈40,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | 685 | Riley | 282 |
| CA Canada | #193 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.6K | 47 | Riley | 253 |
| IT Italy | #276 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.3K | — | Riley | 41 |
| AU Australia | #213 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | 354 | Riley | 225 |
| NZ New Zealand | #160 | ≈2,700 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | 68 | Riley | 115 |
| JM Jamaica | #51 | ≈1,800 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Riley | 23 |
| IS Iceland | #294 | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 1.9K | 5 | Riley | 6 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | — | 55 | 1 in 979 | 55 | — | 7 |
133,872 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry); St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Evidence
(measured from records)No register attests this spelling yet
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Riléy mean, and where does it come from?
- * From Ryley in Lancashire, from Old English ryge (“rye”) + leah (“clearing, meadow”). Equivalent to rye + -ley (“lea”). * Variant of Reilly, from Irish Ó Raghallaigh (see O'Reilly). Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names and DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen and 4 other sources.
- In which country does Riléy have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 134 thousand people named Riléy, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled riley.
- Where is Riléy most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Riléy is densest in St. Kitts & Nevis — about 1 in 979 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Riléy?
- In the United States, the national register counted 133,872 people named Riléy in 2010, about 1 in 2.5 thousand residents.
- How common is Riléy compared with other names?
- In the United States, Riléy is the 174th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Riléy?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ril%C3%A9yThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Riléy” — the 174th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.