Surname Names Names

Family names used as first names. Most began as one of four things: a father's name, a trade, a place, or a nickname — and the trade ones are the easiest to read centuries later.

Rankings for

265 names, most popular first in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Lindsay Lindsay and Lindsey are the same place — a district of Lincolnshire that was effectively an island in fen.
Girl Scottish #2,202 in US
Floyd Floyd is the same name as Lloyd, and the F is a mistake that stuck — English had no way to say the Welsh double L, so it substituted the closest sound it had, and the substitution became a separate name.
Boy Welsh #2,245 in US
Eliott Eliott is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "the Lord is my God," a French spelling of Elliot that descends from Elijah.
Boy French #2,314 in US
Courtney Courtney is a name from a Norman family whose surname is usually read as short nose, though a place-name derivation competes.
Girl Norman #2,329 in US
Willis Willis means son of Will, and the Will behind it is William — a name so common in medieval England that its diminutives generated a whole family of surnames, of which this is one.
Boy English #2,552 in US
Duane Duane means the little dark one, from an Irish surname built on the word for black — and that same root also gives us Dublin, which means the black pool that the city originally grew up around.
Boy Irish #2,603 in US
Murray Murray is a boy's name of Scottish origin from Moray, the northern province, whose name means "sea settlement."
Boy Scottish #2,610 in US
Willard Willard means bold desire, and both halves are Germanic words about force of will — it is a surname from a personal name, and its American use is almost entirely nineteenth-century onward.
Boy English #2,761 in US
Dwight Dwight descends from Dionysus, the Greek god of wine — through the medieval woman's name Diot, a pet form of Dionysia, which is an unusually indirect route for a masculine surname.
Boy English #2,766 in US
Caelan Caelan is a boy's name of Irish origin, usually derived from caol, slender, or read as a form of Caolán.
Unisex Irish #2,921 in US
Lowell Lowell means little wolf, and it is Norman French rather than English — louvel is a diminutive of loup, so the name is affectionate about an animal most cultures feared.
Boy French #3,262 in US
Darcie Darcie is a girl's name of Norman French origin meaning "from Arcy."
Girl French #3,563 in US
Wilbur Wilbur ranks 579th in England and Wales against 3956th in the United States, so a name most people think of as thoroughly American is now used more than six times more readily in England.
Boy English #3,956 in US
Malone Malone is an Irish surname meaning descendant of a follower of Saint John, now used as a given name.
Boy Irish #5,207 in US
Fraser Fraser is a boy's name from a Scottish clan surname whose meaning is unknown, and the strawberry flowers on the clan arms are a pun rather than a derivation.
Boy Scottish #5,762 in US
Garry Garry means spear, and it reached English through a steel town — Gary, Indiana was named for a US Steel chairman, and the place name did more for the given name than any of its Germanic ancestors.
Boy English #6,104 in US
Kellie Kellie has no settled meaning — the Irish Ceallach has been read as bright-headed, as strife, and as one who frequents churches, and the three readings are not close to reconciling.
Girl Irish #6,236 in US
Rafferty Rafferty is a boy's name of Irish origin meaning "floodtide" or "abundance."
Boy Irish #6,257 in US
Kelli Kelli respells Kelly, an Irish surname whose meaning is contested — bright-headed and strife are both proposed for Ó Ceallaigh, and neither has ever been established.
Girl Irish #6,771 in US
Kelley Kelley is the same Irish name as Kellie, spelled differently, and the two split its births between them — this one peaked in 1968 and that one in 1969, a year apart at nearly the same size.
Unisex Irish #7,207 in US
Mirren Mirren is a girl's name taken from a male Irish saint, by way of a Scottish football club, and its meaning has never been settled.
Girl Scottish #7,723 in US
Marceau Marceau is a boy's name of French origin meaning "little warrior," a surname form of Marcel that has become a first name.
Boy French #8,074 in US
Darcey Darcey is a girl's name from the Norman surname d'Arcy, meaning from Arcy in Normandy.
Girl Norman #8,988 in US
Carroll Carroll is one of the more evenly divided names on this site — 14 percent of the births in our records are female, and it belonged to the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence.
Unisex Irish 41,350 births
Innes Innes is a boy's name from a Moray place name meaning "island," and in Scotland it has been used for both sexes.
Boy Scottish 1,750 births

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A style is our reading of a name. A decade is the register — the names children were actually given, in order, with the counts.

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