This name is of English origin.It was an occupational name for a steward or official derived from the Middle English ‘baili’.The word survives in Scotland as baillie,now obselete in England,it is still the common form in Scotland,where it was used of the chief magistrate of a county,a sheriff.In England the term survives as bailiff,which denotes a person who serves writs and summonses and ensures that court orders are carried out.Bailey,in England and Scotland,and Bailly in France, were the chief magistrates of a barony or part of a county.Quite naturally those that worked in the occupation came to acquire the name as a surname.The surnname may also be a topographical name for someone who lived by the outermost wall of a castle;apparently from the Old French ‘bail(le)’,enclosure.This name originally denoted a particular part of a castle and such it sometimes became a placename in its own right.Some bearers of the name undoubtly derive it from the Old Bailley in London,which formed part of the old medieval wall of the city.It can also be a habitational name from Bailley in Lancashire,so called from the Old English ‘beg’ berry a…
Coat of arms: Ermine,three bars wavy sable.C…