This name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is locational surname from any one of the places called 'Bickley' in the counties of Cheshire, Kent and Worcestershire, or form 'Brickeigh' in Devonshire. The place in Cheshire and Devon are recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as 'Bichelei' and a 'Bichelia', respectively. The name means either 'Bicca's clearing' or 'glade of the Woodpecker', derived from the Olde English pre 7th Century personal name 'Bicca', itself from 'becca', a pickaxe or mattock, or from 'bicca', a Woodpecker, with 'leah', a glade, clearing in a wood. Ralph Bickie of Hampshire was listed in the University of Oxford's Register for 1575. The marriage of John Bickley and Mary Brogden was recorded in London in 1607. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Henry de Bickleghe, which was dated 1273, The Devonshire Hundred Rolls, during the reign of King Edward I, The Hammer of the Scots, 1272 - 1307. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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