Riley comes from the Irish surname O Raghallaigh, popularly translated as "valiant" though the surname's own root is debated among genealogists, with some tracing it instead to a place name. The popular reading has stuck, and the name tends to carry connotations of spirited resolve.
The aspects of the sextile or trine have the same quality: but the sextile is less forcible than the trine, either in good or evil. - William Lilly (1602.-1681.)