Ely

Boy name variations

Family name origins & meanings

• English : habitational name from the cathedral city on an island in the fens north of Cambridge. It is so named from Old English ǣl ‘eel’ + gē ‘district’.
• Probably also an Americanized form of German Eley.
• Nathaniel Ely was one of the founders of Hartford, CT, (coming from Cambridge, MA, with Thomas Hooker) in 1635.