Colby
Feminine · “Kolli's farm”
Colby is given to both — 4,184 girls and 53,971 boys since 1880. See Colby as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Colby is a Viking farm. The -by ending is Old Norse for a settlement, and it marks the parts of England the Danes took and kept — you can very nearly draw the boundary of the Danelaw by finding the place-names that end in it.
How old is the name Colby?
Colby first appears in US birth records in 1950 — 75 years ago. The typical Colby alive today was born around 1995, making them about 30 years old. About 4,100 people named Colby are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Colby most popular?
Colby peaked in 1985, reaching #1030 nationally. Today it ranks #2822, 1,792 places below that high. See the whole 1985 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Kolli to Colby
The story of Colby
Scandinavian settlement in the ninth and tenth centuries left a thick layer of Norse place-names across the north and east of England, and -by is the clearest marker of it. Families took surnames from those places when surnames fixed, and Colby crossed to America as one of them. Its use as a given name is twentieth-century and American, given to sons and daughters alike, and it belongs to the same movement that lifted Bailey, Riley and Quinn forward. The Wisconsin cheese arrived in between and is now the association many people reach for first.
Meaning
Kolli's farm
Old Norse by means a farmstead or village, and Kolli is a Norse personal name, itself from kol, 'coal', probably a byname for someone dark. Colby is Kolli's by. The reading is documented and the pattern is common: Derby, Whitby, Grimsby and hundreds of others are built the same way. The cheese is named for a town in Wisconsin, which took the English name.
How the name formed
- Kolli
- Kolli's by
- Colby
Related forms: Kolli · Kolby
Pronouncing Colby
KOHL-bee
Two syllables, stress on the first, the first vowel long. There is no ambiguity in the sound at all.
Nicknames for Colby
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
- 1950
- Most girls named
- 1992155 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1030reached in 1985
- Change vs 2024
- +22.4%60 in 2025, from 49
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.
Colby in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kolli in Old Norse — related form
- Kolby in Danish — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Virginia.
Colbys among us
people named Colby are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 26,788 born in 2025 was named Colby
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Colby
- #2822
- Colby on the 2025 chart
- #787
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Colby went to 60 girls in 2025, but Kolbi, Kolby and Colbi are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 173, which makes it the 787th most-given girls’ name of the year — 2,035 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 9,291 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 26,788 for Colby 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 Bettyann test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Colby's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Bettyann climbed just as high around 1941, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Bettyann's path sketches the road Colby is walking now.
Colby 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
Where Colby is headed
Colby should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Colby beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Colby in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented Norse place-name with a genuinely visible history — the Danelaw is still readable on a map.
- Col and Cobie are both natural short forms.
- Used for both sexes, so it carries no strong expectation either way.
- The cheese is a common association in the United States and will come up.
- Colby, Kolby and Colbie all circulate, so the spelling gets asked for.
- It is heard as a boys' name more often than a girls' one, which a daughter will meet on paper.
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What they receive
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Colby
Feminine · #2822 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Colbys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,100 people named Colby are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Colby?
- Colby is the most-used spelling in US records — 60 of the 173 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kolbi, Kolby and Colbi.
- How popular is the name Colby in 2025?
- Colby ranks #2822 among US girl names in 2025, with 60 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Colby?
- About 1 in every 26,788 US girls born in 2025 was named Colby — 60 in all.
- Will my child share the name Colby with classmates?
- Colby will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Colby
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lya#2822 · Roxanna#2822 · Kensington#2822 · Maybelle#2822 · Hayat#2822 · Seven#2822 · Livie#2822 · Haniya#2822
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Colby? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Colby and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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