How common is the surname Lesley?

2,925 people in the United States had the surname Lesley in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 105,554 Americans. It ranked 10,891st of 162,253 surnames.

Is the surname Lesley getting more or less common?

More common. 2,877 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 2,925 in 2010, up 1.7%.

Is Lesley also a first name?

Yes. Lesley is used as a first name as well as a surname; its first-name page has the meaning and how many babies were given it.

The surname Lesley

A place surname, carried by 2,925 people in the United States.

2 syllables Soundex L240 Also a first name

Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Lesley is more common than 93.3% of them.

Origin

From a placename in Aberdeenshire, originally Lesslyn, Scottish Gaelic lios cuileann (“garden of hollies”).

Lesley is a place surname: taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.

Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How common it is

2010 US Census

There were 2,925 people named Lesley in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 105,554 Americans. That is up 1.7% since 2000, when the Census counted 2,877.

#10,891

rank among US surnames

2,925

people in 2010

1.0

per 100,000 Americans

+1.7%

change since 2000 (was #10,266)

Rank	Surname	People	1 in
#10,886	Nova	2,928	105,446
#10,889	Linker	2,927	105,482
#10,890	Divine	2,926	105,518
#10,891	Lesley	2,925	105,554
#10,894	Jelinek	2,924	105,590
#10,897	Honey	2,923	105,626

Who is named Lesley

Race and Hispanic origin as people reported it in the 2010 Census

79% of people named Lesley identified as white (not Hispanic), 15% as Black (not Hispanic) and 2.6% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).

White (not Hispanic) 79%
Black (not Hispanic) 15%
Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.6%
Two or more races 2.4%
American Indian and Alaska Native 1.1%
Asian and Pacific Islander 0.6%

Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

Spellings and sound-alikes

Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

Variant spellings

Leslie

Surnames that sound like Lesley

Lesley has the Soundex code L240, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code L240.

Questions

Where does the surname Lesley come from?: From a placename in Aberdeenshire, originally Lesslyn, Scottish Gaelic lios cuileann (“garden of hollies”).
How common is the surname Lesley?: 2,925 people in the United States had the surname Lesley in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 105,554 Americans. It ranked 10,891st of 162,253 surnames.
What ethnicity is the surname Lesley?: In the 2010 Census, 79% of people named Lesley identified as white (not Hispanic), and 15% as Black (not Hispanic).
What type of surname is Lesley?: Lesley is a place surname, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.
Is the surname Lesley getting more or less common?: More common. 2,877 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 2,925 in 2010, up 1.7%.
What are other spellings of Lesley?: Leslie.
Is Lesley also a first name?: Yes. Lesley is used as a first name as well as a surname; its first-name page has the meaning and how many babies were given it.