Cortland
Masculine · “short land”
Cortland is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 2,145 boys against 49 girls since 1880.
Cortland comes from a Dutch family who held a great deal of colonial New York — and it is also one of the better American apples, bred at Geneva in 1898.
How old is the name Cortland?
Cortland first appears in US birth records in 1913 — 112 years ago. The typical Cortland alive today was born around 1996, making them about 29 years old. About 1,800 people named Cortland are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cortland most popular?
Cortland peaked in 1991, reaching #1557 nationally. Today it ranks #3949, 2,392 places below that high. See the whole 1991 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From kort land to Cortland
The story of Cortland
The Van Cortlandts were among the great Dutch families of New Netherland and their name is all over New York — a park, a manor house, a street. Cortlandt County was named for them and lost its d. The apple bred at the New York State agricultural station in 1898 was named for the county. Its use as a given name is recent and small.
Meaning
short land
From Dutch kort, short, and land; Van Cortlandt means from the short land, a Dutch place name. The English cognates are transparent — both words mean the same in English as in Dutch.
How the name formed
- kort land
- Van Cortlandt
- Cortland
Related forms: Cortlandt · Courtland
Pronouncing Cortland
KORT-land
Two syllables, first stressed. There is no variation in English.
Nicknames for Cortland
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
- 1913
- Most boys named
- 199656 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1557reached in 1991
- Change vs 2023
- −3.6%27 in 2025, from 28
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.
Cortland in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cortlandt in Dutch — spelling variant
- Courtland in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Tennessee.
Cortlands among us
people named Cortland are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 63,262 born in 2025 was named Cortland
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cortland
- #3949
- Cortland on the 2025 chart
- #894
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cortland went to 27 boys in 2025, but Kortland is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 34, which makes it the 894th most-given boys’ name of the year — 3,055 places above the chart.
- Cortland27
- Kortland7
About 1 boy in 50,238 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 63,262 for Cortland 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 Audwin test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cortland's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Audwin climbed just as high around 1958, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Audwin's path sketches the road Cortland is walking now.
Cortland 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 Cortland is headed
Cortland is easing off slowly — about 15% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Cortland beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cortland in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled and completely transparent Dutch meaning.
- Cort is a plain short form that works from childhood on.
- Read correctly on sight by every English speaker.
- It reads as a surname to people meeting it in front of another one.
- Cortland, Courtland and Cortlandt are all in use and none is dominant.
- An apple variety carries the name, which will be mentioned.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Cortland
Masculine · #3949 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cortlands are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,800 people named Cortland are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cortland?
- Cortland is the most-used spelling in US records — 27 of the 34 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kortland.
- How popular is the name Cortland in 2025?
- Cortland ranks #3949 among US boy names in 2025, with 27 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cortland?
- About 1 in every 63,262 US boys born in 2025 was named Cortland — 27 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cortland with classmates?
- Cortland will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cortland
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Stewart#3949 · Tillman#3949 · Ashley#3949 · Alfonzo#3949 · Blane#3949 · Brayton#3949 · Omega#3949 · Rufus#3949
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cortland? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cortland and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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