Huntley

Huntley comes from an English surname associated with a place name. Its older elements refer to a hunter and a clearing or open piece of land. Like many names ending in ley, it carries the history of a particular landscape before its later use as a surname and then as a first name.

American broadcaster Chet Huntley gives the surname a recognizable twentieth-century association through the Huntley–Brinkley news program. As a given name, Huntley belongs alongside other transferred place surnames, although its opening sound also recalls the separate name Hunter. The connection is linguistic rather than evidence that every Huntley family followed the same occupation. Huntly is a related spelling found in names and places, but individual family histories still matter when using the name to honor a particular line.