Wesley

An English place name meaning western meadow, Wesley became a given name through John Wesley, the eighteenth-century Anglican priest who ride-preached his way across Britain and founded Methodism as an almost accidental byproduct. The name traveled to American frontiers with circuit-riding ministers and split-rail meetinghouses. Princess Bride fans know the farm boy Westley; Star Trek fans know the Crusher; a generation of basketball fans knows Wesley Matthews. It currently ranks 58 and is given to about one in 333 boys. Two soft syllables with a quietly Protestant backbone, the kind of name that can wear a suit or a flannel without seeming to try.