Baby Name Poll Results

I think it should be Ashle, with only one E

i disagree ashle doesnt relli work

i love ashlee its pretty spelt like that

I would go with the convential spelling Ashley to save her the trouble as she grows up.

Ashley is gorgeous but only with this spelling. With the other spellings she will constantly have to correct people who have spelt her name wrong.

For something a little different, you could always go with Ashlyn

well, considering Ashley is the boys spelling & Ashleigh the girls, then Ashleigh. But I wouldnt reccomend naming her Ashleigh. She’ll only get picked on for having a boys name!

I have never heard of a boy named Ashley. I can’t stand when people vary from the traditional spelling. I think it’s pretty corny. Why would you want your child to have to correct people their whole lives?

I LOVE Ashleigh. Ashley is toooo common! Most common name ever! Ashleigh is beautiful, and it is not a boy’s name anymore! How many boys named Ashleigh do really see out there? Get real. My niece’s name is Ashleigh Lauren.

I like Ashleigh as well. I don’t think people will get confused. It’s not an unusual spelling, and it can’t really get pronouced wrong.

Ashley is a male name (ever read Gone With the Wind?!). I know many males named Ashley, Kim, Leslie, Allison and Kelly. If you must name your daughter a male name stick with the original spelling. Ashleigh and Ashlee look low-class and uneducated IMO.

Ashley may have been a male name at one point in time but not really anymore. So I wouldn’t worry about that...I would stick with the original spelling too.

I’m a traditionalist when it comes to spelling. Keep the most traditional spelling and save your kid the grief of needing to correct people when they spell her name.

Well I am a man and my name is Ashleigh. It is the old English spelling of "Ashley" and was originally a boys name. I am English and was born in 1969. In 1999 Ashleigh was the 193rd most popular name for boys in Australia. In 2001 it was the 564th most popular so obviously things are getting worse for us men called Ashleigh. But these days any boy called Joshua or Ethan will end up with a name as common as John or David was when I was at school. My name is now well known due to a couple of US girl singers but I dont care. Why is it that boys names are always given to girls and end up as girls names but never the other way around?

I find it amusing the number of people who seem to think that Ashleigh is a nuanced or fancy change from tradition when actually it seems that it is possibly the older and therefore technically more traditional way to spell the name. Ashley is perhaps the more popular version thesedays, and a common girl's name in the USA. Interestingly, Ashleigh is somehow more cognitively associated with femininity for folks in the UK and Eireland, however it is originally a boys name altogether.

Either way I think it's a beautiful name for girls or boys however you like to spell it. Personally, I think it's perhaps a bit common place as a girls name in the USA, but I particullary love it for a boy and spelled the olde way, especially for a Celtic family. "Boy Named Sue" anyone?

For further education: Leigh or leah is Olde English for a meadow or grove. Lee is an old word for a harbor or cove. This futher implies the pronunciation of the name leans slightly towards "lay" rather than too far into "lee" as it's meaning is Ash Grove/ Ash Meadow. Many Scottish and Irish spellings use Leigh and the Scots language contains several words ending with -gh or -ch to represent the breath heard in their respective pronunciations. In conclusion, the femininity of the name itself or the -leigh spelling is only cognitive and associative with what people have come to be accustomed to in the current times. In truth, the -leigh spelling is more authentically Scottish/Celtic and founded in history and language. However it is worth considering that your child may have to correct people when using this form of spelling the name, since Ashley is more commonly used especially in America. Further more, it should be noted that correct spellings were only standardized in the 15th century. Ultimately, letters and spellings are only symbols for sounds, and as far as English goes, they often don't make a lot of sense. Consider the word laugh as an example. Seems it would make more sense to spell it "laff." As it is spelled, it looks more like it wants to be pronounced like the Scottish "Loch" as in the famous Loch Ness. BTW, Loch, lake and laug all mean the same thing. Think about the word lagoon. English language is full of interesting tidbits borrowed from its parent and relative languages which include German, Latin, Greek, and French and Indo/Persian combined with the native tongues of the Celtic Islands. Fascinating...