Farley
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from one or other of several places so named; first attested William de Ferlecheia 1189 Sol
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/fɑɹli/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Farley is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 6K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 8.2K
- USUnited States1 in 8.6K
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
- 473 (measured from records)
- 1 in 3.1K (inferred from the name graph)
38,528 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Guyana
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from one or other of several places so named; first attested William de Ferlecheia 1189 Sol
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Farley 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 | #809 | 38,528 | 1 in 8.6K | 39K | Farley | 473 |
| GB United Kingdom | #829 | ≈8,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.2K | listed | Farley | 218 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈3,400 est. | ≈1 in 11K | 1 | Farley | 143 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈3,400 est. | ≈1 in 31K | — | Farley | 8 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈3,300 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Farley | 18 |
| AU Australia | #847 | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 8.7K | 1 | Farley | 163 |
| NZ New Zealand | #587 | ≈820 est. | ≈1 in 6K | — | Farley | 55 |
| GY Guyana | — | 239 | 1 in 3.1K | 239 | — | 7 |
38,528 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; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)
Farley is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Walter Lorimer, US author
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, Old English; from the fern meadow
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In Irish, A common English name used as synonym of Farrelly especially in Co. Cavan
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)
- James Farleyb. 1888USAmerican politician (1888-1976)
- Morgan Farleyb. 1898USAmerican actor (1898–1988)
- Walter Farleyb. 1915USAmerican writer (1915-1989)
- Melissa Farleyb. 1942USAmerican psychologist
- Marianne Farleyb. 1950CACanadian Actress and producer
- Farley Jackmaster Funkb. 1962USAmerican DJ
- Guy Farleyb. 1963GBBritish film score composer
- Chris Farleyb. 1964USAmerican actor and comedian (1964–1997)
- Kevin Farleyb. 1965USAmerican actor and singer
- John P. Farleyb. 1968USAmerican actor and comedian
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 49 sources across 26 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 39K | #898 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 37K | #849 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 36K | #945 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 239 | #389 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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
- What does the name Farley mean, and where does it come from?
- from one or other of several places so named; first attested William de Ferlecheia 1189 Sol Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- In which country does Farley have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 39 thousand people named Farley, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled farley.
- Where is Farley most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Farley is densest in Guyana — about 1 in 3.1 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How do you pronounce Farley?
- A machine transcription gives /fɑɹli/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Farley?
- In the United States, the national register counted 38,528 people named Farley in 2010, about 1 in 8.6 thousand residents.
- How common is Farley compared with other names?
- In the United States, Farley is the 809th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Farley?
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/farleyThe 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, “Farley” — the 809th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.