About Kinsley
Kinsley began as an English surname attached to a place in West Yorkshire. Its meaning is “clearing belonging to Cyne.” As an American first name, it has a much newer story, moving from rare use to thousands of girls a year during the twenty-first century.
A Yorkshire place name
The surname comes from the town of Kinsley. Its first element preserves the Old English personal name Cyne, itself a shortened form of longer names beginning with a word meaning “royal.” The second element refers to a clearing.
That makes “Cyne’s clearing” the most direct explanation of the complete name. The royal connection belongs to Cyne’s older name element; the place name originally identified a location associated with a person.
Kinslee and Kensley are modern variants. Kinsey and Ainsley have a similar rhythm and may have helped make Kinsley sound familiar when it began attracting more attention, but they have their own histories. Kinsley’s particular derivation is through its English surname and place name.
Sound and shortenings
Kinsley is pronounced KINZ-lee, with two syllables, a short first vowel, and a voiced “z” sound in the middle. Its final “-ley” sounds like “lee.” The name combines a fairly consonant-rich first syllable with a light, open ending.
“Kins” is an obvious suggested shortening, although the full name is already brief. Kinslee preserves essentially the same pronunciation while changing the written ending; Kensley changes the first vowel as well as the spelling.
Kinsley Washington’s championship moment
Softball player Kinsley Washington supplied a particularly memorable sporting connection. On June 4, 2019, she hit the single that won UCLA the NCAA championship against Oklahoma.
With two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning, Washington drove in teammate Jacqui Prober to complete a 5–4 victory. The hit ended the game immediately, making it a walk-off win. UCLA also completed a sweep of the best-of-three championship series. Washington was a sophomore at the time, while Prober was a junior.
Her university career extended beyond that decisive moment on the field. Washington earned a bachelor’s degree in forensic psychology with a minor in cognitive science, then entered a master’s program in transformative coaching and leadership. Her full name has consequently appeared both in accounts of a national championship and in UCLA’s record of its student athletes.
Popularity in the United States
Kinsley was still uncommon in 2000, when 110 girls received it. By 2010, the number had reached 1,046 and its rank was No. 307.
Its highest annual count was 4,053 girls in 2017. The best rank came later, at No. 57 in 2021. In 2025, Kinsley ranked No. 93 with 2,671 girls. It remains a top-100 name, though its annual count has fallen from the late-2010s high.
Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution
Meaning and history draw on the references below. Popularity figures use the local Social Security Administration series for this exact spelling and sex; counts below five are omitted. Existing Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA. Suggested shortenings are identified in the prose.
How popular is Kinsley?
In 2025, Kinsley ranked #93 among girls in the United States, with 2,671 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for girls in 1978; its largest annual count was 4,053 in 2017. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.