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[Facts] Well...
... Riley says/used to say that it cam from an Irish surname simply meaning "rye clearing". Other than that, not much to help with here.

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(Dragon)(Clarinet) aka Xenokleia
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Sorry, you are reading that wrong.Riley is only an Irish surname when it is used as a spelling variation of Reilly.With the meaning "rye clearing", it is an English surname, not an Irish surname. I have seen some reference books that say the Irish Reilly goes back to a word which perhaps meant "valiant", but that's just an educated guess, not a proven derivation.
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