Old English place name from 'lang' (long) and 'leah' (clearing/meadow), meaning 'long meadow.'
Langley comes from the Old English compound "lang" (long) and "leah" (woodland clearing or meadow), and as a place name it appears across England — there are Langleys in Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Shropshire, and elsewhere — describing the long, open clearings that characterized certain stretches of the medieval English landscape. It became a surname carried by families from those regions, and like many English place-name surnames, it eventually crossed into given-name use, particularly in America where the surname-to-first-name pipeline has always run freely. The name's most consequential historical bearer was Samuel Pierpont Langley, the American astronomer, physicist, and aviation pioneer who in the late nineteenth century made serious attempts at powered flight — his steam-powered Aerodrome aircraft came tantalizing close to success just before the Wright Brothers' breakthrough at Kitty Hawk.
The Langley unit of solar radiation is named for him, and his legacy is honored in the name of Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, which in turn gave its name to the surrounding community where the CIA's headquarters is located. That association has given "Langley" a particular contemporary resonance as shorthand for American intelligence in spy fiction and political journalism. As a given name, Langley carries an appealing combination of the pastoral English (woodland clearings, long meadows) and the quietly powerful contemporary (aerospace, intelligence, institutional heft).
It works with equal ease as a masculine or feminine name. The two-syllable, open-vowel structure gives it the same rhythmic accessibility that has made names like Hadley and Kinsley popular, while its historical depth keeps it from feeling manufactured.