English

Alternative forms

• Kelley
• (female given name): Kelli, Kellie

Proper noun

Kelly

1. A surname​, Anglicised from the Irish Ó Ceallaigh.
2. A male given name transferred from the surname.
3. A female given name, popular from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Quotations

• 1867 Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald, The Life of David Garrick, Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1899, page 319

  A better and more straightforward appeal, though less cool, was made to him by Hugh Kelly, - - - The play was so successful, and and Garrick said so much of it that Lord Pembroke was eager to be back from Paris to see it, though he said, with true aristocratic pride, that he could expect very little from such a name as "Kelly", especially if there be an "O'" before it.

• 1986 Daphne Merkin, Enchantment, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986, ISBN 0151287910, page 207

  On the walls of the salon are blown-up photos of models with dazzling teeth and ingeniously tousled hair - women with names like Kelly and Dawn, who come from tiny towns in Texas and Washington, who are tall and thin, and who don't appear to be burdened by any pasts to speak of.

English

Noun

kelly ‎(plural kellies)

1. A square or hexagonal pipe that is turned in order to rotate the rotary table of a drilling rig.