Halley

Where Halley comes from

Halley hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1910
    First appearance
    #1,421 among girls, 11 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1957
    Mostly girls from here
    Until now more boys than girls got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
  3. 1984
    Halley Feiffer born
    American actress
  4. 1985
    Halley Gross born
    American actress, screenwriter and voice actor
  5. 1986
    Peak, #580
    333 babies named Halley — more than any year before or since.
  6. 1987
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #1,733.
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Halley Feiffer · American actress, born 1984
  • Halley Gross · American actress, screenwriter and voice actor, born 1985
  • Halley Stewart · British politician, 1838–1937
  • Halley G. Maddox · U.S. Army major general, 1899–1977

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.