Torney is an English, Northern-Irish and German surname which is most prevalent in Australia and has its highest density in Northern Ireland.
As a habitational surname it may be connected to French locations with the name Tournay or Tournai (from Proto-Celtic turno- "height" with the Gaulish toponymic suffix -acu(m), meaning "location of the hills" or "shore heights") – and carried by people arriving after the Norman conquest in 1066 – or to a variety of British places named Thorney (with the Old English meaning of "thorn tree island"). As an Irish name it is the reduced Anglicized form of Ó Torna (meaning "descendant of Torna", a personal name). In Slavic influenced eastern Germany it is a toponymic surname – derived similarly as in England from the word thorn – and probably referred to a location characterized by thorn bushes and/or trees.
Notable people with the name Torney include:
Caragh Torney (2002)