Carley
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Carley is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: from Carley in Lifton, Devon; first attested Drogo de Carleg’ 1230 P (D).
- USUnited States1 in 22K(measured from records)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 23K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 39K
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)
- Sources
- 371 (measured from records)
- 1 in 22K (inferred from the name graph)
15,392 people, 2020
Highest-authority source
United States
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Carley in Lifton, Devon; first attested Drogo de Carleg’ 1230 P (D)
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Carley 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 | 15,392 | 1 in 22K | 15K | Carley | 371 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 39K | 4 | Carley | 149 |
| AU Australia | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 23K | 3 | Carley | 118 |
| CA Canada | ≈850 est. | ≈1 in 45K | 1 | Carley | 146 |
| IT Italy | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 325K | listed | Carley | 11 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈64 est. | ≈1 in 77K | 11 | Carley | 37 |
15,392 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); 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). 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).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Carley is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, A female given name from the Germanic languages, a less common spelling of Carly.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Irish, This name is of two entirely distinct origins. It is an English name long established in Co. Wexford, hence the place-name Carleysbridge in that county. In Connacht it is that of the sept Mac Fhearghaile, formerly anglicized as MacCarrelly, which in variant spellings occurs frequently in sixteenth-century Fiants relating to Co. Roscommon
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Oliver Carley Harrimanb. 1894USAmerican banker and dog fancier (1894-1971)
- Carley V. Porterb. 1906USAmerican politician
- Carley Garnerb. 1977USAmerican commodity trader
- Carley Fortuneb. 1984CACanadian writer
- Carley Shimkusb. 1986USAmerican news anchor and reporter
- Carley Ann McCordb. 1989USAmerican sports reporter (1989-2019)
- Carley Wattsb. 1991GBBritish former glamour and lingerie model
- Carley Mijovicb. 1994AUAustralian basketball player (born 1994)
- Carley Olivierb. 1999CACanadian ice hockey player
- Carley Uddenbergb. 2000CACanadian-born Saint Kitts and Nevis football player
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 42 sources across 23 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 4.9K | #6,345 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.9K | #6,886 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 4.6K | #7,020 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- In which country does Carley have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 15 thousand people named Carley, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled carley.
- Where is Carley most common?
- Carley is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 22 thousand people carrying it.
- What does the name Carley mean, and where does it come from?
- from Carley in Lifton, Devon; first attested Drogo de Carleg’ 1230 P (D) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- Is Carley a male or female name?
- Carley is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Carley?
- In the etymology graph, Carolyn, Carolina and Carla are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Carley?
- In the United States, the national register counted 15,392 people named Carley in 2020, about 1 in 22 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Carley?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/carleyThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Carley”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.