Emily Family History

English: habitational name from Emley in Yorkshire, Embley in Northumberland, or Himley in Staffordshire. The Yorkshire name comes from an Old English male personal name either Ēama or Emma + lēah ‘woodland clearing’. In the Northumberland name the first element is probably Old English elm ‘elm-tree’ while in the Staffordshire name it is Old English hymele ‘hop (plant)’ + lēah.

English: perhaps from the Middle English female personal name Emily (Old French Emilie, Latin Aimilia, from the name of a major Roman patrician family). This origin is uncertain as its use as a personal name in medieval England is attested only in the doubtful 1316 spelling and in Chaucer's fictional Emelye in the Knight's Tale, an Anglicized form of Emilia in Boccaccio's Teseide.

Possibly also an Americanized form of South German and Swiss German Emele.