| The girl name Bailey [ 2 syll. bai-ley, ba-il-ey ] is also used, though less commonly, as a boy name. It is pronounced BEYLiy KEY. Bailey is of Old English origin and it is used mainly in English. Derived from baili which means 'bailiff' ; baiulus which means 'porter, messenger'. It represents the transferred use of the job title and the surname as a given name. See Bailey for more info. Forms of Bailey include the English names Bailee and Baylee. Bailey is popular as a baby girl name. The name has been rising in popularity since the 1980s; prior to that, it was of only very light use. At the modest peak of its usage in 1998, 0.268% of baby girls were named Bailey. It had a ranking of #60 then. In 2007, it ranked at #83 with a usage of 0.187%, and it was the most popular out of all girl names in its family. Bailey was 5 times more widely used than the 2nd most popular name, the English Baylee, in 2007. Although Bailey is today more frequently used for girls, there was a period prior to 1937 when more boys were given the name. After 1983, increasingly the name became more popular with girls than with boys. There were 9 times more girls than boys who were named Bailey in 2006. Baby names that sound like Bailey include the English Bailee, the English Baylee, the English, German, and Italian Bella, the English Beulah, the English Billie, the English Bel, and the English and French Belle. KEY: Pronunciation for Bailey: B as in "be (B.IY)" ; EY as in "ate (EY.T)" ; L as in "lee (L.IY)" ; IY as in "eat (IY.T)"
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