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Summary
- No one named Harley appears in the Bible, and the name has no Hebrew meaning.
- Harley is an English surname from a place name that joins Old English leah, “clearing,” with hara, “hare,” or hær, “rock.”
- The hare is named in the Bible only in the food laws, as an unclean animal (Leviticus 11:6; Deuteronomy 14:7).
- Harley has been an American boys’ name since at least 1880 and a girls’ name since the late 1980s; it peaked at 202nd for girls in 2017.
- The motorcycle company Harley-Davidson, founded in Milwaukee in 1903, is named for William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Behind the Name, “Harley” (given name and surname), citing Bosworth and Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898), with United States and England and Wales popularity figures. https://www.behindthename.com/name/harley
- “lea,” Wiktionary, on the descent of the word from Old English lēah. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lea
- “Harley, Shropshire” and “Harley, South Yorkshire,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley,_Shropshire
- “Harley-Davidson,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley-Davidson
- Strong’s Hebrew 768, arnebeth, Bible Hub. https://biblehub.com/hebrew/768.htm
- Scripture quotation: Leviticus 11:6, English Standard Version. References: Leviticus 11:3, 7; Deuteronomy 14:7.
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