Beverley
Feminine · “beaver stream”
Beverley is given to both — 13,062 girls and 407 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Beverley is a Yorkshire town whose name means beaver stream — a lodge in the water, recorded before the Norman conquest, when beavers still lived in English rivers.
How old is the name Beverley?
Beverley first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Beverley alive today was born around 1943, making them about 82 years old. About 6,700 people named Beverley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Beverley most popular?
Beverley peaked in 1938, reaching #309 nationally. Today it ranks #8362, 8,053 places below that high. See the whole 1938 chart.
Where it comes from
From beofor licc to Beverley
The story of Beverley
Beverley Minster made the town important, and the place name became a surname and then a given name. It was masculine first; a 1904 novel is usually credited with turning it toward girls, and by the 1930s it was overwhelmingly feminine. The -ley spelling stayed commoner in Britain than in America, where it peaked around 1937.
Meaning
beaver stream
From the Old English beofor, 'beaver', and licc or leac, a stream — so the stream where beavers built. The town of Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire preserves it. English beavers were hunted to extinction by the sixteenth century, so the name outlasted the animal by four hundred years.
How the name formed
- beofor licc
- Beverley
- Beverly
Related forms: Beverly · Beverlee
Pronouncing Beverley
BEV-ur-lee
Three syllables, stress on the first. Beverley and Beverly are said identically; the extra e is silent.
Nicknames for Beverley
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
- 1912
- Most girls named
- 1938407 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #309reached in 1938
- Change vs 2023
- −7.7%12 in 2025, from 13
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.
Beverley in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Beverly in English — spelling variant
- Beverlee in English — spelling variant
Beverleys among us
people named Beverley are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 133,939 born in 2025 was named Beverley
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 Lenore test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Beverley's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lenore climbed just as high around 1915, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lenore's path sketches the road Beverley is walking now.
Beverley 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
Beverley beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Beverley in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A real English town with a great minster stands behind it.
- The beaver-stream meaning is concrete and records a vanished English animal.
- Bev is a short, warm, well-established form.
- Beverly is much the commoner American spelling.
- A Los Angeles neighborhood carries the name in most people's minds.
- It is strongly period-coded to the 1930s and 1940s.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Beverley
Feminine · #8362 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Beverleys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 6,700 people named Beverley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Beverley in 2025?
- Beverley ranks #8362 among US girl names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Beverley?
- About 1 in every 133,939 US girls born in 2025 was named Beverley — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Beverley with classmates?
- Beverley will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Beverley
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lona#8362 · Peggy#8362 · Leda#8362 · Margarette#8362 · Rella#8362 · Evalena#8362 · Vashti#8362 · Nona#8362
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Beverley? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Beverley and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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