At 10:40 AM 8/21/06 -0700, you wrote: >Phyllis Jackson wrote: >> I also have been to Whaley Bridge and Whaley Museum. The Museum is very >> small, but interesting, nothing of genealogical interest. I asked about >> the name Whaley. It is not named for a person or family. The word >> whaley means small valleys or hills. >> >> Phyllis > >Hi Phyllis, > >I thought I'd read to you from the small book, "Tracing The History of Place >Names," by Charles Whynne-Hammond, published 1992 by Countryside Books, >Newbury, Berkshire. >On pg. 151, under listings for Lancashire, it lists WHALLEY. > >About which it says: > >"Called Hwaelleage in AD 798 and Whalegh in 1246, the suffix here clearly >comes from leah, Saxon for "grove', 'wood' or 'pasture'. But there is a debate >about the origin of the prefix,-- either from hwael or from hwealf, Saxon >words for 'hill' and 'vault' or 'arch' respectively." > >Take note that I noticed the apparent transposition of the 'a' and the 'e' in >the above words, and that is precisely as the book prints them. I double >checked to see whether *I* had transposed them. I didn't. > >In conversations I've recently had with Frank Whalley, Wales, we were talking >about the pronouncing of the first three letters of the name. >The above seems to quite clearly point out where the "whuh" sound comes from, >doesn't it? > >Uncommon as it is in any English words WE know, nevertheless, how *else* would >one pronounce "hweal" or "hwaelf", except starting out as sounding like >"whale..."? > >Again, a most interesting exposition, no? > >keith whaley Perhaps I missed it in the thread - but in my family I've always heard it pronounced as Whale - y with the y at the end pronounced as a second E would be in a word. Diverging just slightly, has anyone seen the surname Whalen as variation of Whaley? Tim