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 [ 2 syll. le-slie, les-l-ie ] The girl name Leslie is also used as a boy name, though it is far more popular for girls. It is pronounced LEHSLiy KEY. Leslie is of Celtic origin. It is used mainly in English and German. The name Leslie means 'garden of hollies'. Derived from leas which means 'garden' ; cuilinn which means 'holly'. The first name is from the English and Scottish surname, which is from the place name of Lesslyn in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Members of the prominent Scottish earldom family were closely linked to the Scottish royal house of Stewart; a later member David Leslie (1600-1682) was however a general in the English and Scottish Civil Wars who helped defeat the royalists but eventually switched sides. The first name initially appeared as Lesley in the 18th century Robert Burns poem Bonnie Lesley. It grew popular by the late 19th century; it was also later promoted by the fame of the British film actor Leslie Howard (1890-1943), who acted in the well-known film Gone with the Wind (1939). See Leslie for more info. Forms of the name include the English names Lezli and Lezly. The pet forms Lee (English), Lesa (English), and Lessie (English), and the spelling variants Leslea (English), Leslee (English), Lesleigh (English), Lesley (English), Lesli (English), Lesly (English), Leslye (English), Lezlee (English), Lezleigh (English), and Lezlie (English) are other forms of Leslie. Leslie is popular as a baby girl name. The name grew in popularity from the 1920s up to the 1960s. Its usage peaked in 1969 with 0.331% of baby girls being named Leslie. It had a ranking of #64 then. The baby name has dropped in popularity since then. In 2008, it ranked at #147 with a usage of 0.112%, but it was nevertheless the most popular among all girl names in its family. Leslie was thrice as popular as the next ranked name, the English Lesly, in 2008. Although Leslie is used more commonly as a girl name today, there was a period prior to 1945 that it was more popular with boys. After 1946, increasingly the name became more popular with girls than with boys. There were 18 times more girls than boys who were named Leslie in 1997. Baby names that sound like Leslie include the English Leslea, the English Lesley, the English Lesli, the English Lesly, the English Lacole, the English Leisel, the German Leizel, the English Lesleigh, the English Leslye, the English Lezlee, the English Lezleigh, the English Lezli, the English Lezlie, the English Lezly, the German Liesel, the English Lisel, the English and French Lucile, the English and French Lucille, the Hawaiian Leikela, and the Tongan Lesieli. KEY: Pronunciation for Leslie: L as in "lee (L.IY)" ; EH as in "Ed (EH.D)" ; S as in "sea (S.IY)" ; L as in "lee (L.IY)" ; IY as in "eat (IY.T)"   |
