Waverly is an English place name usually explained as "meadow of quivering aspens", from the Old English waefre and leah. Sir Walter Scott's 1814 novel Waverley made it a fashionable surname and street name, including Waverly Place in New York's Greenwich Village. In the United States Waverly rose from number 1741 in 2015 into the top 1000 in 2018, peaked at number 736 in 2020 and ranks number 1028 in 2025.