Ashley is from an Old English place-name — æsc (ash tree) + lēah (meadow). Originally a masculine name (Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, 1936), it shifted to predominantly feminine in the 1980s and became the #1 most popular US baby girl's name in 1991 and 1992 — peak of an enormous late-20th-century cohort. Ashley Judd (born 1968) — American actress and political activist; her 2017 testimony helped launch the modern #MeToo movement against Harvey Weinstein. Ashley Williams (born 1978) — first Black woman to head ESPN's editorial team.
Featured throughout 1990s American media; subject of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind (1936).
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Ashley reduce to 7, The Seeker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.