Explore the Family Name Thorley

The meaning of Thorley

English (mainly Staffordshire): habitational name, in most cases probably a variant of Thornley, although there are places called Thorley (in Hertfordshire and in Lincolnshire), which could have contributed to the surname; these are also named from Old English thorn ‘thorn bush’ + lēah ‘wood, woodland clearing’.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.

How common is the last name Thorley in the United States?

Based on the Decennial U.S. Census data, the surname Thorley saw a slight increase in popularity between 2000 and 2010. The rank of this surname moved up from 40,622 to 39,960, marking an improvement of about 1.63%. Furthermore, the count of individuals with this surname also increased by around 8.28%, from 507 to 549 people. However, the proportion per 100,000 people remained constant at 0.19 during both Census years.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#40,622	#39,960	1.63%
Count	507	549	8.28%
Proportion per 100k	0.19	0.19	0%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Thorley

Regarding ethnic identity, the Decennial U.S. Census data reveals that the Thorley surname is predominantly associated with individuals identifying as White, with a slight increase from 95.27% in 2000 to 95.45% in 2010. The percentage of those identifying as Hispanic decreased notably from 2.56% to 1.82%. Meanwhile, the representation of those identifying as Black was introduced at 1.46% in 2010, while the category of Two or more races, which had a 0.99% representation in 2000, showed no data in 2010. The categories of Asian/Pacific Islander and American Indian and Alaskan Native had no recorded figures for both 2000 and 2010.

	2000	2010	Change
White	95.27%	95.45%	0.19%
Hispanic	2.56%	1.82%	-28.91%
Black	0%	1.46%	0%
Asian/Pacific Islander	0%	0%	0%
Two or More Races	0.99%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%