Kimberley

Where Kimberley comes from

English place name "wood or clearing of Kyneburga (a seventh century female saint)", from Old English cyne- (“royal”) + burh (“fortress”) + lēah (“leigh, clearing”).
— Wiktionary's entry for Kimberley
  • 3 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1941
    First appearance
    #4,420 among girls, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1967
    Peak, #166
    2,003 babies named Kimberley — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1975
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #279.
  4. 1981
    Kimberley Walsh born
    British singer and actress
  5. 1993
    Kimberley Bos born
    skeleton racer from the Netherlands
In the dictionary
  • Any of several places:
  • The capital city of the Northern Cape, South Africa, noted for diamond mining.
  • A male given name transferred from the surname or place name (site of a battle in the Boer Wars).
  • A female given name transferred from the surname, variant of Kimberly, popular in the 1960s and the 1970s.
Namesakes
  • Kimberley Walsh · British singer and actress, born 1981
  • Kimberley Bos · skeleton racer from the Netherlands, born 1993
  • Kimberley Joseph · Australian film director, born 1973
  • Kimberley Nixon · British actress, born 1985
  • Kimberley Locke · American singer-songwriter, born 1978

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.