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Name Lineage

    The surname Woodley

    An English place surname, carried by 6,982 people in the United States.

    2 syllables Soundex W340

    Woodley: #5,026 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#10Martinez#100Jimenez#1,000Archer Woodley #5,026, 6,982 people Woodley: #5,026 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#100Jimenez Woodley #5,026, 6,982 people
    Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Woodley is more common than 96.9% of them.

    Origin

    English origin

    From Old English wudu (“wood”) + lēah (“woodland clearing, glade”). Equivalent to wood + -ley (“lea”).

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

    One of 1,446 English surnames on this site.

    Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

    How common it is

    2010 US Census

    There were 6,982 people named Woodley in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 44,220 Americans. That is up 5.7% since 2000, when the Census counted 6,603.

    #5,026
    rank among US surnames
    6,982
    people in 2010
    2.4
    per 100,000 Americans
    +5.7%
    change since 2000 (was #4,880)
    RankSurnamePeople1 in
    #5,017Bernardo7,00344,088
    #5,018Berkowitz7,00044,107
    #5,020Arango6,99844,119
    #5,021Delafuente6,99644,132
    #5,022Merkel6,99144,163
    #5,023Victoria6,98944,176
    #5,024Boynton6,98344,214

    Who is named Woodley

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

    47% of people named Woodley identified as Black (not Hispanic), 46% as white (not Hispanic) and 3.3% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).

    • Black (not Hispanic) 47%
    • White (not Hispanic) 46%
    • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 3.3%
    • Two or more races 2.8%
    • American Indian and Alaska Native 0.6%
    • Asian and Pacific Islander 0.3%

    Compare: most common surnames among Black Americans.

    Famous Woodleys

    2 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

    • Shailene Woodley
      American actress (born 1991)
    • Tyron Woodley
      American mixed martial artist (born 1982)

    Spellings and sound-alikes

    Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

    Variant spellings

    • Woodlee

    Surnames that sound like Woodley

    Woodley has the Soundex code W340, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code W340.

    Other English surnames

    All 1,446 English surnames

    Questions

    Where does the surname Woodley come from?
    From Old English wudu (“wood”) + lēah (“woodland clearing, glade”). Equivalent to wood + -ley (“lea”).
    How common is the surname Woodley?
    6,982 people in the United States had the surname Woodley in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 44,220 Americans. It ranked 5,026th of 162,253 surnames.
    What ethnicity is the surname Woodley?
    In the 2010 Census, 47% of people named Woodley identified as Black (not Hispanic), and 46% as white (not Hispanic).
    Who is the most famous person named Woodley?
    Shailene Woodley, American actress (born 1991), followed by Tyron Woodley.
    Where is the surname Woodley most common?
    Wikidata records people named Woodley in the United States.
    What type of surname is Woodley?
    Woodley is a place surname, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.
    Is the surname Woodley getting more or less common?
    More common. 6,603 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 6,982 in 2010, up 5.7%.
    What are other spellings of Woodley?
    Woodlee.