Burney
Masculine
Burney is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 883 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Burney is a surname that reached American children through books rather than through families, which is a real mechanism and a less common one than inheritance.
How old is the name Burney?
Burney first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Burney alive today was born around 1934, making them about 91 years old. About 300 people named Burney are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Burney most popular?
Burney peaked in 1885, reaching #765 nationally. See the whole 1885 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Burney
Frances Burney published her first novel anonymously at twenty-five, in secret, having copied it out in a disguised hand so that her own writing would not be recognized at the printer. It was a hit; the secret came out; and she spent the next fifty years writing, including a journal that is one of the best accounts of English life of its period. The single most extraordinary thing she wrote is a letter to her sister describing her own mastectomy, performed without anesthetic, which she insisted on recording in full because she thought the experience should be known. A surname attached to a body of work like that gets read, and a name that gets read gets given.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The surname has English and Irish forms with separate origins, neither of them settled — a place name in one case and an anglicized Gaelic name in the other. The families that carry it are not all related, and no single meaning covers them.
Pronouncing Burney
BUR-nee
Two syllables, stress at the front. Nothing in the spelling is ambiguous.
Nicknames for Burney
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
- 1882
- Most boys named
- 193021 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #765reached in 1885
- Change vs 1975
- −16.7%5 in 1980, from 6
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.
Burneys among us
people named Burney 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
Burney 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 short, friendly and read correctly on sight.
- It has the settled sound of a real surname rather than an invention.
- It is carried by almost nobody as a first name.
- It will be heard as Barney or Bernie, which are both close by.
- The spelling is recorded for a few girls, but nearly every child with it is a boy.
- There is no meaning to hand a child, only the history of the people who carried it.
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Burney
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Burneys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Burney are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Burney in 2025?
- Burney is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Burney with classmates?
- Burney 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 Burney? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Burney and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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