Sydney

Where Sydney comes from

For the surname and given name, see Sidney. The cities in Australia and Canada are named after British politician Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney (1733–1800).
— Wiktionary's entry for Sydney
  • From a surname
  • 2 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1886
    First appearance
    #828 among girls, 8 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1934
    Sydney Pollack born
    American film director, producer and actor
  3. 1940
    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.
  4. 1997
    Sydney Sweeney born
    American actress
  5. 2000
    Peak, #23
    10,243 babies named Sydney — more than any year before or since.
  6. 2009
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #48.
In the dictionary
  • A unisex given name transferred from the surname.
Namesakes
  • Sydney Sweeney · American actress, born 1997
  • Sydney Pollack · American film director, producer and actor, 1934–2008
  • Sydney Brenner · South African-British biologist, Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine 2002, 1927–2019
  • Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone · American hurdler and sprinter, born 1999
  • Sydney Chaplin · American film and theater actor, 1926–2009

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.