Hayley is an English surname and place name from the Old English for "hay clearing" or "hay meadow". Child actress Hayley Mills, star of Pollyanna and The Parent Trap, launched it as a first name in the 1960s, and the spellings Hailey and Haley later outran the original in America. Hayley ranked number 149 in 2000, dropped out of the US top 1000 in 2024 and stands at number 1,251 in 2025.