Proper noun

1. A common English place name.
2. derived from the places.
3. transferred from the surname.
4. transferred from the surname.

Usage notes

• Ashley was originally a male given name, but since the sixties it has also been given to women, particularly in the U.S.A. as the top name for girls in 1991 and 1992.

Quotations

• 1936 Margaret Mitchell: Gone With the Wind: Chapter III:

  'There now, Scarlett! You admit it is true. What would you be doing with a husband like Ashley? 'Tis moonstruck they all are, all the Wilkes.'

• 1999 Andrew Pyper: Lost Girls: Chapter Ten:

  But when Krystal McConnell and Ashley Flynn were named deep in the heart of the '80s the thing was cuteness, feminine delicacy raised to an aesthetic paradigm. --- And everyone named according to a particular version of the pedigree fantasy. Ashley : transplanted Southern privilege, a destiny lying in sorority mixers and a marriage of health club memberships, state-of-the-art appliances and night courses in nouvelle cuisine.