Medley
surname · Latin script
Meaning: (i) person from Medley, Oxfordshire; (ii) medieval nickname for an aggressive person; (iii) different form of Madeley
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/mɛdli/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Medley is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 24K(measured from records)
- VCSt. Vincent & Grenadines1 in 101K
- ARArgentina1 in 623K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 93 (measured from records)
- 1 in 24K (inferred from the name graph)
13,630 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
United States
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
(i) person from Medley, Oxfordshire; (ii) medieval nickname for an aggressive person; (iii) different form of Madeley
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Where in the world(measured from records)
Medley 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 | 13,630 | 1 in 24K | 14K | Medley | 93 |
| AR Argentina | 73 | 1 in 623K | 73 | Medley | 20 |
| ES Spain | 20 | 1 in 2.5M | 20 | — | 8 |
| PL Poland | 7 | 1 in 5.5M | 5 | — | — |
| NL Netherlands | 5 | 1 in 3.5M | 7 | — | 1 |
| CZ Czechia | 5 | 1 in 2.1M | 5 | — | — |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | 1 | 1 in 101K | 1 | — | — |
13,630 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; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); MVČR — living population register 2017; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 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)
Medley is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, from Medley (Oxfordshire), or perhaps Madely (Gloucestershire); first attested Thomas Medlay 1419. The nickname may also be involved.
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, Madeley, or from Medley on the Thames in Oxon., so called from OE middel middle + eg island. 2. nickname for an aggressive person, from ME, OF medlee combat, conflict (LL misculata).
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, Combat, fighting; a battle.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, medley (song that mixes other songs)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Danish, medley (of songs; swimming event)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Henry Medleyb. 1687Royal Navy admiral
- Samuel Medleyb. 1738Baptist minister and hymn-writer
- George Webb Medleyb. 1826GBBritish stockbroker and chess player (1826-1898)
- Robert Medleyb. 1905GBBritish artist (1905-1994)
- Phil Medleyb. 1916USAmerican songwriter (1916–1997)
- Les Medleyb. 1920GBEnglish association football player (1920-2001)
- Bill Medleyb. 1940USAmerican singer and songwriter, record producer (born 1940)
- Linda Medleyb. 1964UScartoonist
- Luke Medleyb. 1989GBEnglish footballer (born 1989)
- Zech Medleyb. 2000GBEnglish association 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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 33 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 14K | #2,641 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 13K | #2,520 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 13K | #2,723 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 73 | — |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 20 | #86,192 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 20 | #83,413 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 5 | — |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 5 | #112,987 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 5 | #201,896 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 5 | #76,173 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 5 | #20,662 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 2 | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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)
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 Medley mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) person from Medley, Oxfordshire; (ii) medieval nickname for an aggressive person; (iii) different form of Madeley Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Medley?
- A machine transcription gives /mɛdli/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Medley have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 14 thousand people named Medley, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled medley.
- Where is Medley most common?
- Medley is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 24 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Medley?
- In the United States, the national register counted 13,630 people named Medley in 2010, about 1 in 24 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Medley?
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/medleyThe 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, “Medley”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.