Whitney

Where Whitney comes from

From Old English hwītan, dative of hwīt (“white”) + īeġ (“island”), "white island".
— Wiktionary's entry for Whitney
  • From a surname
  • 2 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1936
    First appearance
    #3,701 among girls, 6 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1962
    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. 1963
    Whitney Houston born
    American singer, actress, and film producer
  4. 1986
    Peak, #32
    9,536 babies named Whitney — more than any year before or since.
  5. 1989
    Whitney Wolfe Herd born
    American businesswoman
  6. 1992
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #85.
In the dictionary
  • A female given name transferred from the surname, popular in the 1980s and 1990s due to the fame of Whitney Houston.
  • A male given name from surname.
Namesakes
  • Whitney Houston · American singer, actress, and film producer, 1963–2012
  • Whitney Wolfe Herd · American businesswoman, born 1989
  • Whitney Smith · founder of vexillology, 1940–2016
  • Whitney Cummings · American actress, comedian and writer, born 1982
  • Whitney Peak · Ugandan-Canadian actress, born 2003

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.