Charleigh

Charleigh is a super-duper fancy-pants Americanized variation of Charlie, a gender-neutral nickname for either Charles or Charlotte (and their derivatives). The English Charles ultimately developed from the German Karl, a name which referred to a “free man” (although not one of nobility). Eventually female equivalents emerged in many forms such as Charlotte, Caroline, Charlize and Carla. In more modern times American parents have glommed onto Charlie and Carlie as more informal ways to name their daughters. Charlie is still more popular as both a nickname and a legally given first name for baby boys, but the name has also seen a lot of surprising success with the baby girls. So much so that new spelling variations have emerged to “cuteify” the name – Charlee, Charli and Charleigh are all examples of such spelling mutations. Charleigh is by far and away the most elaborate of all of these – requiring nine letters to produce a simple two-syllable name. That's a lot of extra work!