Wensley
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from Wensley, Derby/North Riding of Yorkshire; first attested Jordan de Wandesleye 1204 AssY (A Dictionary of English Surnames)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 14 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/ˈwɛnzli/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Wensley is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United Kingdom than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 140K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 140Kfew records
- CACanada≈1 in 160Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United Kingdom (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 168 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 102K (inferred from the name graph)
≈500 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
How to pronounce Wensley
- English:/ˈwɛnzli/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)from Wensley, Derby/North Riding of Yorkshire; first attested Jordan de Wandesleye 1204 AssY
Cited for this meaning 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where the surname Wensley is found
(measured from records)Wensley 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | ≈500 est. | ≈1 in 140K | 791 | Wensley | 102 |
| CA Canada | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 163K | — | Wensley | 72 |
| US United States | 246 | 1 in 1.4M | 278 | Wensley | 168 |
| AU Australia | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 140K | — | Wensley | 60 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈65 est. | ≈1 in 985K | — | Wensley | 15 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈52 est. | ≈1 in 102K | — | Wensley | 24 |
| GY Guyana | ≈4 est. | ≈1 in 207K | 6 | — | 1 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); 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)Wensley 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 hamlet in South Darley parish, Derbyshire Dales district, Derbyshire, England (OS grid ref SK2661).
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, person from Wensleydale, Yorkshire, meaning ‘Wendel’s glade’.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
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)- Albert Wensleyb. 1898NZEnglish cricketer (1898-1970)
- Penelope Wensleyb. 1946AUAustralian diplomat; Governor of Queensland (2008-2014)
- Samantha Wensleyb. 1950GBBritish rower
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)23 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 14 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Wensley mean, and where does it come from?
- from Wensley, Derby/North Riding of Yorkshire; first attested Jordan de Wandesleye 1204 AssY Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Wensley?
- In English /ˈwɛnzli/ (Wiktionary).
- Which countries have the most people with the surname Wensley?
- Mondonomo estimates about 495 people named Wensley in the United Kingdom, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wensley. After it come Canada, United States, Australia and South Africa; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Wensley?
- In the United States, the national register counted 246 people named Wensley in 2010, about 1 in 1.4 million residents.
What do you want to know about Wensley?
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/wensleyThe 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, “Wensley” — ranked 7988th in the United Kingdom (Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register)). Data snapshot 2026-10-13.