In many baby name books, Shelley is listed as meaning "From the meadow on the ledge" or "clearing on a bank" sometimes truthful and pretty. It is Old English in origin. As with many other names (Ashley, Courtney, etc.), Shelley is today a name given almost exclusively to girls after historically being male. Shelley is also a transferred surname used by those in Essex, Suffolk and Yorkshire, particularly in settlements where a wood/clearing was beside a ledge or hillside.
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Famous quotes containing the word shelley:
“‘Or like small gnats and flies, as thick as mist
On evening marches, thronged about the brow
Of lawyers, statesmen, priest and theorist;—”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“Sun-girt City! thou hast been
Ocean’s child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must be his prey,”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“A story of particular facts is a mirror which obscures and distorts that which should be beautiful; poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which it distorts.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)