Ensley

• Origin: uncertain
• Meaning: uncertain
• Gender: unisex
• First Est. Early 18th-century
• ENZ-lee
• Variations: Enslie, Ensleigh, Enslee

From the transferred use of a surname, its origin and meaning are uncertain.

It may be a derivative of the English habitational surname Ingestre, which comes from the name of a village in Staffordshire, England. The place was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as In Gestreon. In this case, the name may be composed of the Anglo-Saxon ing (hill) and gestreon (property). Other scholarship has proposed that the place-name may derive from the Latin angustiae (narrows), referring to the narrows of the River Trent.

It may also derive from the English surname Hinchley, which comes from Hinchcliffe, another English place-name, meaning “cliff settlement.”

In the United States, Ensley was sometimes used as an anglicized form of the German surname Ensle or Ensli, which were medieval diminutive forms of Anselm and Ernst.

Some have also proposed that Ensley is a variation of the English surname Ainsley.

As a given-name, Ensley was used for males as early as the 1800s, often in reference to a family surname. Its recent use as a female name was no doubt sparked by reality TV star Jenelle Evans, who named her daughter Ensley Jolie in 2017, with her birth featured on Teen Mom 2. Ensley immediately entered the U.S. Top 1000 in 2017, coming in as the 969th most popular female name for that year. It has thus far peaked at #587 in 2020 and currently ranks at #844 (2025).

Sister Names: Afton, Airdrie, Aspen, Aveley, Bellamy, Blair, Bristol, Carrington, Clancy, Cloudesley, Darcy, Delancey, Delaney, Hadley, Harper, Henley, Ellery, Ember/Emberlyn, Everly, Fallon, Finley, Flannery, Greenley, Indie, Ireland, Jazlyn, Jolie, Jovie, Kimber, Kinsley, Laken, Lakelyn, Lockett, Mazeley, McKenna, Meadow, Navy, Oakley, Paisley, Piper, Presley, Romilly, Rumer, Scout, Story, Sutton, Tennille, Tennyson, Tinsley, Waverley, Willoughby, Winslet, Wren, Zaylee

Brother Names: Axton, Archer, Ash, Beckett, Bentley, Brooks, Carter, Colt, Dawson, Deacon, Denver, Easton, Emory, Everett, Finley, Foster, Fletcher, Graham, Grayson, Griffin, Hayes, Heath, Holden, Ives, Jagger, Jettson, Judd, Keller, Knox, Lawson, Lennox, Maddox, Macklin, Maverick, Nash, Nixon, Oakes, Paxton, Preston, Price, Remington, Rhett, Rhodes, Thatcher, Trigg, Truce, Truett, Wilder, Yates, Zane

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingestre
• https://surnamedb.com/Surname/Hinchcliffe
• http://www.socialsecurity.gov
• http://www.findagrave.com