Spanish diminutive variant of Zuleika, an Arabic name meaning 'brilliant beauty.'
Zuley is a warmly affectionate diminutive of Zulaika (also spelled Zuleikha or Zuleyha), one of the most romantically charged names in the Islamic literary tradition. Zulaika is the name given in Islamic exegesis and Persian poetry to the wife of Potiphar, the Egyptian official who purchased the prophet Yusuf (Joseph) as a slave. In the biblical text she is unnamed, but Islamic tradition and the rich poetic literature that grew around the Yusuf story gave her Zulaika — a name whose Arabic roots suggest brightness and beauty.
Her story became the centerpiece of one of the most celebrated poems in Persian literature, Jami's fifteenth-century *Yusuf and Zulaykha*, which transformed her from a villain into a symbol of the soul's longing for the divine. The name spread across the Ottoman Empire, Persia, Central Asia, and the broader Muslim world, carried by the emotional power of this story. In Turkey it became Züleyha, and the diminutive Züley or Zuley became a tender everyday form.
The name also appears in Latin America, particularly among communities with Moorish or North African ancestry filtered through Spanish colonial history, where it absorbed a lively, melodic quality. Modern bearers of Zuley tend to inherit a name that balances deep cultural roots with an easy, contemporary sound. It is short enough to need no nickname yet rich enough to carry centuries of poetry behind it. For families navigating between heritage and modernity, Zuley offers a rare gift — a name that sounds entirely current while holding within it one of literature's oldest love stories.