Stanley

Stanley originated as an English surname transferred to use as a given name, derived from a place name meaning stony clearing in Old English, from stan (stone) and leah (woodland clearing). Several English villages bore this name, and the powerful Stanley family of noble lineage helped spread it as a personal name. It gained broad popularity in the English-speaking world during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, partly through the fame of explorer Henry Morton Stanley. Stan is the common short form.