Sorley and Somerled are masculine given names in the English language, Anglicizations of Scottish Gaelic Somhairle and Norse Sumarlidi.
Sorley is an Anglicised form of ' (<small>modern</small> ), a name mutual to the Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic languages, which means "summer warrior". The Gaelic name is a form of the English Somerled, and both names are ultimately derived from the Old Norse Old Norse '. A variant form of ' is '. A variant form of Somerled is Summerlad, a name altered by folk etymology, derived from the words "summer" and "lad". ' is sometimes Anglicised as Samuel, although these two names are etymologically unrelated (the latter being ultimately of Hebrew origin).
The Old Norse personal name likely originated as a byname, meaning "summer-traveller", "summer-warrior", in reference to a Viking, or men who took to raiding during the summer months as opposed to full-time raiders. An early occurrence of the term is ' (', perhaps meaning "fleet"), recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 871. Another early occurrence of the term is ', meaning "fleet of the '", which is recorded in the 12th-century Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, in an account of an attack on Buchan in the mid-10th century. Possibly the earliest record of the personal name occurs in a grant of land in Nottinghamshire by Edgar the Peaceful in 958. Several men with the name are recorded in early Icelandic sources, such as the 10th-century , and his son , Icelanders said to have been of Scottish and Hebridean ancestry. The first historical personage in Orkney with the name was , Earl of Orkney, eldest son of , Earl of Orkney (d. 1014).
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