Family name origins & meanings
- English : habitational name from either of two places so named. One in southern Yorkshire is recorded as Pillei in Domesday Book and as Pillay in the late 12th century. It is probably from Old English pīl ‘pile’, ‘post’ + lēah ‘wood’, ‘clearing’, i.e. a wood where timber for piles could be obtained. The other, in Hampshire, appears in Domesday Book as Piste(s)lei, but has later spellings resembling those for Pilley in Yorkshire, and may have the same etymology.