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Surname Etymology and Meaning of HAWLEY

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Name meanings and etymologies are often disputed. The information here is compiled from freely available sources, and no claims whatsoever are made for accuracy, either historical or etymological.

From Haw, a hedge, Saxon, haeg, a small piece of ground near a house, a close, a place where hawthorns grow, and leg, a field or meadow.

Source: An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names With an Essay on their Derivation and Import (1857).

English and Scottish: habitational name from any of various places called Hawley. One in Kent is named with Old English halig ‘holy’ + leah ‘wood’, ‘clearing’, and would therefore have once been the site of a sacred grove. One in Hampshire has as its first element Old English h(e)all ‘hall’, ‘manor’, or healh ‘nook’, ‘corner of land’. However, the surname is common in South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, and may principally derive from a lost place near Sheffield named Hawley, from Old Norse haugr ‘mound’ + Old English leah ‘clearing’.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names (2003)