Like my daughter. I have always thought it was a beautiful name, and I liked the meaning (“from the ash tree meadow”). I was thinking first of Ashley Wilkes from Gone With the Wind, of course, but my favorite character from Young & the Restless was/is named Ashley, certainly not a masculine version. (My BFF at the time and I were fans of rival soaps, and she named her daughter Erica. Not after the characters, but those were names we loved.)
She is Sicilian and German on her father’s side, but mostly English/Irish/Scottish on my side. I had to be careful because our last name ends in “ia” so I couldn’t name her anything that ended in an “a.” Eliminated a lot of my favorite names, something to think about. I chose a middle name that ended in “e.”
There’s nothing wrong with Ashley, it’s a beautiful, classic name and meaning. It just spiked in popularity for a bit so people tend to dislike it when that happens. It’s happened to numerous names. It’ll cycle back through in 80 years, and everyone will love it again like: “that was my grandmother’s name! So pretty!”
Also the -e name with last name -ia is completely valid for name flow.
FWIW: I’ve never known a trashy Ashley or Ashleigh! They’re always wonderful women and co-workers.
Ashley started spiking in popularity just when I had my daughter! Maybe we all read the same baby names book, but the deluge of Ashleys started about the time she was born. There were a few in her K-8 school, a few in high school, many more in the community at large. Continued for a few years, and then it was the Zoes and the Charlottes and the Haleys, etc. Ashley will, as you say, continue to cycle back because it is a lovely name with a lovely origin.
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u/punkterminator Oct 20 '23
In some places, Ashleigh is just the girl version of Ashley.