Cameo
Feminine
Cameo is given to both — 1,501 girls and 218 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
A cameo is carved out of a stone that has two colored layers, and the whole craft depends on that accident of geology. The carver cuts away the top layer to leave a raised figure in one color standing on a background of another, which is why the classic cameo is a pale head on a dark ground. Nobody knows where the word comes from.
How old is the name Cameo?
Cameo first appears in US birth records in 1957 — 68 years ago. The typical Cameo alive today was born around 1987, making them about 38 years old. About 1,500 people named Cameo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cameo most popular?
Cameo peaked in 1980, reaching #1936 nationally. See the whole 1980 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A carving technique using banded stone to Cameo
The story of Cameo
The stone that made the technique possible is banded agate or sardonyx, which forms in layers of different colors, and the Romans were extremely good at exploiting it. The largest surviving examples are enormous state pieces with imperial families carved across several layers, and the smallest are ring stones. The craft was revived in the Renaissance and again in the nineteenth century, when shell rather than stone became the usual material and the pale-on-dark portrait became a standard piece of jewelry. The word also traveled sideways: a cameo appearance is a small, distinct, deliberately noticeable part, on the analogy of a small carved portrait set into something larger, and that sense is now commoner in English than the original one.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The word's origin is genuinely unestablished. It appears in medieval Latin and the Romance languages, and proposals have connected it to Arabic, to Persian, to Hebrew and to a Latin word about layers, none of them convincingly. Reference works generally say origin unknown, which is unusual for a word of this age and this currency.
How the name formed
- A carving technique using banded stone
- Revived in the Renaissance and the nineteenth century
- The word extended to a brief noticeable appearance
- Taken as a personal name in the twentieth century
Pronouncing Cameo
KAM-ee-oh
Three syllables, stress on the first, said exactly as the ordinary word. There is nothing to teach anyone, which is characteristic of names taken straight from English vocabulary.
Nicknames for Cameo
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
- 1957
- Most girls named
- 199268 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1936reached in 1980
- Change vs 2018
- −14.3%6 in 2020, 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.
Cameos among us
people named Cameo 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
Cameo 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
- Nobody will mispronounce it or need it spelled twice.
- It works on the register for either child, which the record confirms.
- The word names something genuinely beautiful and the explanation takes one sentence.
- It is an ordinary English noun and will be read as one before it is read as a name.
- The film sense of the word is the one most people reach for now.
- There is no meaning behind the word itself, which is unusual and worth knowing.
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Cameo
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Cameos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,500 people named Cameo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Cameo in 2025?
- Cameo is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Cameo with classmates?
- Cameo will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
Carol#2239 · Cynthia#1013 · Catherine#313 · Christine#1272 · Carolyn#1222 · Christina#770 · Charlotte#2 · Cheryl#4352
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cameo? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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