Bucky
Masculine
There is a molecule named after this nickname. When chemists found a sixty-atom sphere of carbon in the 1980s they called it buckminsterfullerene, because it is built the same way as the geodesic domes designed by a man everybody called Bucky — and the molecules are still known as buckyballs.
How old is the name Bucky?
Bucky first appears in US birth records in 1931 — 94 years ago. The typical Bucky alive today was born around 1966, making them about 59 years old. About 800 people named Bucky are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Bucky most popular?
Bucky peaked in 1958, reaching #1277 nationally. See the whole 1958 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From buck, a male deer, becomes a word for a dollar to Bucky
The story of Bucky
Buckminster Fuller spent a year in his thirties deciding whether to drown himself and came out of it having resolved to find out what one person could do that no institution would. What followed was the geodesic dome, a car with three wheels, a world map that unfolds without distorting the continents, and about fifty years of lecturing. When the carbon sphere was identified its discoverers named it after him because the structure was exactly the one he had spent decades demonstrating: a shell of hexagons and pentagons that gets stronger as it gets bigger. It remains the only class of molecule named after a nickname.
Meaningnot established
Not established
As a name Bucky is a nickname first: it attaches to Buckminster, to surnames beginning with Buck, and to boys with prominent front teeth, and American records carry it as a legal name from the 1930s. The word buck itself has a good history — it means a male deer, and it came to mean a dollar because a buckskin was a unit of trade on the American frontier before there was much coin about.
How the name formed
- buck, a male deer, becomes a word for a dollar
- Bucky as an American nickname from the 1930s
- a designer builds geodesic domes on the same principle
- chemists find a carbon sphere and name it after him
- the name fades from American use after the 1960s
Related forms: Buck · Buckminster
Pronouncing Bucky
BUCK-ee
Two syllables, stress at the front. There is no other way to read it.
Nicknames for Bucky
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
- 1931
- Most boys named
- 197950 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1277reached in 1958
- Change vs 2023
- −28.6%5 in 2024, from 7
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.
Bucky in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Buck in English — related form
- Buckminster in English — related form
Buckys among us
people named Bucky are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Bucky sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is warm and immediately readable, which very few short men's names manage.
- Buck is available as a plainer form for an adult who wants one.
- It has a genuinely interesting namesake and a molecule.
- It reads unmistakably as a nickname and people will look for a longer name.
- In American English it also describes prominent front teeth, which children notice.
- It is closely dated to the middle of the last century.
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Bucky
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Buckys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Bucky are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Bucky in 2025?
- Bucky is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Bucky with classmates?
- Bucky will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More B names
The most-given names starting with B, all years combined.
Brian#339 · Benjamin#11 · Brandon#261 · Bryan#336 · Bruce#536 · Billy#1068 · Bobby#1097 · Bradley#403
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Bucky? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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