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
Whitney through the years
  1. 1936
    First appearance
    #3,701 among girls with 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 on, more girls have.
  3. 1963
    Whitney Houston born
    American singer, actress, and film producer
  4. 1986
    Peak, #32
    9,536 babies named Whitney, the most in any year.
  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.