Variant of Wesley, from Old English meaning western meadow or clearing.
Westly is a variant spelling of Wesley, a name with firm topographical roots in Old English. The place name Westley — from west-leah, meaning "western woodland clearing" or "western meadow" — appears in several English villages, most notably in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and became a hereditary surname carried by English families into the modern era. The name's transformation from surname to given name owes an enormous debt to John Wesley (1703–1791), the Anglican clergyman whose evangelical ministry gave rise to Methodism and whose tireless horseback preaching across Britain and America made him one of the most influential religious figures of the eighteenth century.
John Wesley's brother Charles was nearly as significant — a hymn writer of extraordinary output who composed over 6,000 hymns, including "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." The Wesley name thus became deeply embedded in Protestant communities across England and America as a form of devotional tribute, and Wesley as a given name spread through dissenting and Methodist families throughout the nineteenth century.
The spelling Westly is a variant that appears in American records, particularly in communities where phonetic spelling was common and the -ley ending was simplified. In popular culture, Wesley gained a romantic adventurous quality from William Goldman's 1973 novel The Princess Bride and its beloved 1987 film adaptation, in which the hero Westley (another variant spelling) delivers the iconic declaration "as you wish." This literary legacy gives the name a dash of romantic idealism. The Westly spelling sits in productive ambiguity — old enough to feel genuine, distinctive enough to stand out from the Wesley majority, and connected to a rich history of both religious seriousness and storybook heroism.