Cody
Feminine · “Descendant of Cuidightheach”
Cody is given to boys far more often — 292,009 boys against 5,168 girls since 1880. See Cody as a boy name
Cody is an Irish surname that became a Wild West byword and then an American boy's name and then, briefly, a girl's. The female peak is 1988, right inside the boys' name's own enormous decade.
How old is the name Cody?
Cody first appears in US birth records in 1926 — 99 years ago. The typical Cody alive today was born around 1988, making them about 37 years old. About 5,000 people named Cody are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cody most popular?
Cody peaked in 1988, reaching #740 nationally. Today it ranks #5554, 4,814 places below that high. See the whole 1988 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Ó Cuidighthigh to Cody
The story of Cody
William Frederick Cody — Buffalo Bill — was an army scout and buffalo hunter who from 1883 ran the Wild West show that toured America and Europe for thirty years and did more than anything else to fix the popular image of the American frontier. That made the surname a household word. As a given name Cody rose steeply in America from the 1970s and was in the boys' top thirty through the 1980s and 1990s; the girls' use came alongside it and peaked in 1988, then faded, which is the usual fate of a girls' version that never separates itself from a very large boys' name.
Meaningscholars disagree
Descendant of Cuidightheach
From Irish Ó Cuidighthigh, from a personal name generally read as helper or helpful one. The derivation is standard, though the exact sense of the underlying word is discussed. A separate Irish Mac Óda, son of Odo, is also anglicized as Cody. Neither is assignable to a particular bearer.
How the name formed
- Ó Cuidighthigh
- Cody
Related forms: Ó Cuidighthigh · Codey
Pronouncing Cody
KOH-dee
Two syllables, stress on the first. There is no ambiguity, and all four spellings of the ending are identical in speech.
Nicknames for Cody
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
- 1926
- Most girls named
- 1988253 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #740reached in 1988
- Change vs 2023
- −38.9%22 in 2025, from 36
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.
Cody in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ó Cuidighthigh in Irish — related form
- Codey in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas.
Codys among us
people named Cody are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 73,058 born in 2025 was named Cody
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cody
- #5554
- Cody on the 2025 chart
- #702
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cody went to 22 girls in 2025, but Kodi, Codi and Kody and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 263, which makes it the 702nd most-given girls’ name of the year — 4,852 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 6,111 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 73,058 for Cody itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Marleen test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cody's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Marleen climbed just as high around 1939, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Marleen's path sketches the road Cody is walking now.
Cody 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
Cody beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cody in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Everyone can say and spell it after one hearing.
- It has a genuine Irish surname behind it.
- Four letters and two syllables keep it very compact.
- It is overwhelmingly a boy's name in American use.
- Buffalo Bill is the first association for anyone who knows American history.
- It is closely dated to the 1980s and 1990s for both sexes.
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What they receive
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Cody
Feminine · #5554 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Codys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,000 people named Cody are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cody?
- Cody is one of 5 recorded spellings. Kodi is the more common one — 171 births in 2025 against 22 for Cody.
- How popular is the name Cody in 2025?
- Cody ranks #5554 among US girl names in 2025, with 22 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cody?
- About 1 in every 73,058 US girls born in 2025 was named Cody — 22 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cody with classmates?
- Cody will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cody
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eda#5554 · Phebe#5554 · Felicia#5554 · Audie#5554 · Maryellen#5554 · Warren#5554 · Ruthann#5554 · Nettie#5554
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cody? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cody and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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