Hadley
Meaning of Hadley
Hadley began as an English surname taken from several places of that name. The place name comes from Old English words for heather and a clearing or meadow, so Hadley is usually explained as meaning 'heather field'. It is pronounced HAD-lee.
The name's best-known bearer is Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway's first wife. They married in 1921 and moved to Paris, and Hemingway later recalled their years there in his memoir A Moveable Feast. Paula McLain's novel The Paris Wife tells the story of their marriage from Hadley's point of view.
In the U.S., Hadley was still uncommon in 2000, when it ranked 919th, but it climbed quickly to its peak of No. 100 in 2014. It has stayed near the top 100 ever since, and in 2025 it ranked 121st, given to 2,254 girls.
Pronunciation
American English
- Pronunced as HAD-lee (/'hædli/)
U.S. Popularity Chart
States Popularity Chart
Notable People Named Hadley
| Elizabeth Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway's first wife, married him in 1921 and moved to Paris, where he pursued writing and she met fellow expatriate authors. |
| Hadley Clare Freeman is an American British journalist who writes for The Sunday Times and previously wrote for The Guardian. |
| Hadley Wickham is a New Zealand statistician and leading R developer, chief scientist at Posit, and creator of ggplot2 and the tidyverse. |
| Hadley Fraser is an English actor and singer who made his West End debut as Marius in Les Miserables and his Broadway debut originating the role of Tiernan in The Pirate Queen. |
| Hadley Caliman was an American jazz saxophonist and flutist. |
| Hadley Delany is a former American child actress best known for playing Lilly on the TV series Louie from 2010 to 2015. |
| Hadley Robinson, born Hailey Robinson, is an American actress best known for Little Women, Utopia, and the lead role of Vivian in Moxie. |
