Amberleigh
Feminine · “Arabic "ambergris”
Amber the gemstone is named after whale secretion, by mistake. Arabic anbar means ambergris, the waxy substance from sperm whales used in perfume; European traders applied the word to the fossil resin as well, and the two were confused until the resin took the name outright.
How old is the name Amberleigh?
Amberleigh first appears in US birth records in 1977 — 48 years ago. The typical Amberleigh alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 600 people named Amberleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Amberleigh most popular?
Amberleigh peaked in 1988, reaching #5065 nationally. Today it ranks #7491, 2,426 places below that high. See the whole 1988 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From ʿanbar to Amberleigh
The story of Amberleigh
Ambergris forms in the gut of sperm whales and washes ashore as grey lumps; it was one of the most valuable substances in the medieval trade, used as a perfume fixative and a medicine, and Arab traders supplied it to Europe under the name ʿanbar. Baltic amber, the fossilized tree resin, arrived by a different route entirely and was simply called by the same word once both were on the market as costly aromatic-looking materials. The confusion is permanent: the English word amber now names the resin, and the whale product needs a qualifier. Amber became a widely used American name in the 1970s and 1980s, and the compound Amberleigh peaks in 1988.
Meaning
Arabic "ambergris", by way of the gemstone; with an English ending
From Arabic ʿanbar, ambergris, through Old French ambre. The fossil resin and the whale product were both called ambre in medieval French, distinguished when necessary as yellow amber and grey amber; the yellow one eventually took the plain word and the grey kept ambergris. The -leigh ending is Old English lēah, a woodland clearing, used in modern naming as a decorative suffix with no meaning of its own.
How the name formed
- ʿanbar
- ambre
- Amber
- Amberleigh
Related forms: Amberly · Amberlee
Pronouncing Amberleigh
AM-bur-lee
Three syllables, stress on the first. The -leigh ending is said lee; the gh is silent and comes from an Old English spelling that stopped matching the sound centuries ago.
Nicknames for Amberleigh
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1977
- Most girls named
- 201223 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #5065reached in 1988
- Change vs 2024
- −12.5%14 in 2025, from 16
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Amberleigh in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Amberly in English — spelling variant
- Amberlee in English — spelling variant
Amberleighs among us
people named Amberleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 114,805 born in 2025 was named Amberleigh
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Eyleen test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Amberleigh's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Eyleen climbed just as high around 1924, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Eyleen's path sketches the road Amberleigh is walking now.
Amberleigh sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Amberleigh beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Amberleigh in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Amber and Leigh both work as short forms and stand alone.
- It is read correctly on sight by English speakers.
- The word behind it has an unusually well-documented trade history.
- Amberly and Amberlee are competing spellings of the same sound.
- The -leigh ending adds three letters and no sound.
- The late-1980s peak dates a bearer fairly precisely.
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What they receive
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Amberleigh
Feminine · #7491 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Amberleighs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Amberleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Amberleigh in 2025?
- Amberleigh ranks #7491 among US girl names in 2025, with 14 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Amberleigh?
- About 1 in every 114,805 US girls born in 2025 was named Amberleigh — 14 in all.
- Will my child share the name Amberleigh with classmates?
- Amberleigh will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Amberleigh
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Christie#7491 · Carmelita#7491 · Jetta#7491 · Hildegard#7491 · Rickie#7491 · Billy#7491 · Angelyn#7491 · Jewell#7491
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Amberleigh? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Amberleigh and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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