13,242 Global SMALLEY Family Members

SMALLEY Family History

This uncommon yet long-established name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational surname deriving from the place called Smalley in the parish of Morley, near the city of Derby in Derbyshire. The place is recorded as "Smalleage" in 1009, and as "Smalei" in the Domesday Book of 1086, and derives its name from the Olde English pre 7th Century "smael", narrow, small, and "leah", thin wood, glade, clearing in a wood. Locational surnames such as this were acquired by the lord of the manor, and local landowners, and especially by those former inhabitants of a place who moved to another area, usually in search of work, and who were thereafter best identified by the name of their birthplace.