Meaning & History
English habitational name from either of two places in West Yorkshire called Lindley, or from Linley in Shropshire and Wiltshire, all named from Old English lin ‘flax’ + leah ‘wood’, ‘glade’, with epenthetic -d-, or from another Lindley in West Yorkshire (near Otley), named in Old English as ‘lime wood’, from lind ‘lime tree’ + leah ‘woodland clearing’. Lindley in Leicestershire probably also has this origin, and is a further possible source of the surname.
German: habitational name from places in Bavaria and Hannover called Lindloh, meaning ‘lime grove’, or a topographic name with the same meaning (see Linde + Loh).
German: habitational name from places in Bavaria and Hannover called Lindloh, meaning ‘lime grove’, or a topographic name with the same meaning (see Linde + Loh).