Corby
Masculine · “the raven farm”
Corby is given to both — 1,355 boys and 303 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Every English place name ending in -by marks a Viking settlement. Derby, Whitby, Grimsby, Rugby, Corby: byr is Old Norse for a farm or a village, and there are around eight hundred and fifty of them, clustered so tightly in the east and north that they map the Danelaw almost exactly.
How old is the name Corby?
Corby first appears in US birth records in 1922 — 103 years ago. The typical Corby alive today was born around 1975, making them about 50 years old. About 1,200 people named Corby are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Corby most popular?
Corby peaked in 1973, reaching #1054 nationally. Today it ranks #12008, 10,954 places below that high. See the whole 1973 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From byr to Corby
The story of Corby
The -by names are one of the clearest pieces of evidence for where Scandinavian settlement in England actually was. They almost never appear west of a line running roughly from Chester to London, and they are dense in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and the east midlands — which is the territory the ninth-century treaty assigned to Danish law. Whole clusters of them sit around a single older English village, which suggests new farms carved out rather than existing ones renamed. The raven reading of the first element has its own life: corbie is still the Scots word for a raven, and The Twa Corbies, in which two of them discuss a dead knight nobody will miss, is one of the coldest ballads in the language.
Meaningscholars disagree
the raven farm, or Kori's farm
From an English place name in Norse -by, a settlement. The first element is read either as the Norse personal name Kori or as a word for a raven, which survives in Scots as corbie. Both are standard proposals and neither has been settled.
How the name formed
- byr
- Corby
Pronouncing Corby
KOR-bee
Two syllables, stress on the first. There is nothing ambiguous in the spelling, which is unusual for a name of this shape.
Nicknames for Corby
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
- 1922
- Most boys named
- 197359 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1054reached in 1973
- Change vs 2021
- 0.0%5 in 2025, from 5
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.
Corbys among us
people named Corby are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 341,615 born in 2025 was named Corby
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Rojelio test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Corby's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Rojelio climbed just as high around 1952, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Rojelio's path sketches the road Corby is walking now.
Corby 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
Corby beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Corby in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented English place name whose ending can be traced to a specific settlement history.
- Two syllables that everyone reads correctly on sight.
- It serves either child, and the records show both.
- Corbin and Colby are both commoner and close enough to be substituted.
- It is a fair-sized town in Northamptonshire, which is what a search will return.
- The very few girls given this spelling will be read as boys on every form.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Corby
Masculine · #12008 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Corbys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Corby are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Corby in 2025?
- Corby ranks #12008 among US boy names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Corby?
- About 1 in every 341,615 US boys born in 2025 was named Corby — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Corby with classmates?
- Corby will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Corby
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Garfield#12008 · Chas#12008 · Lew#12008 · Barney#12008 · Dewitt#12008 · Granville#12008 · Cicero#12008 · Willam#12008
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Corby? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Corby and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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