Cortney
Feminine · “of Courtenay”
Cortney is given to both — 16,923 girls and 3,173 boys since 1880. See Cortney as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Cortney is a Norman estate name with an American ending. Courtenay was a place in France, then a great English family, then a surname, and finally — very recently — a girls' name spelled several different ways.
How old is the name Cortney?
Cortney first appears in US birth records in 1963 — 62 years ago. The typical Cortney alive today was born around 1990, making them about 35 years old. About 16,500 people named Cortney are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cortney most popular?
Cortney peaked in 1990, reaching #226 nationally. See the whole 1990 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Curtenus to Cortney
The story of Cortney
The Courtenays were a French noble house who came to England in the twelfth century and became earls of Devon, holding land there for four hundred years. The surname crossed into given-name use in twentieth-century America — first for boys, then decisively for girls in the 1970s — and the respellings followed at once: Courtney, Cortney, Kortney, Courtnee. This spelling peaked in the late 1980s.
Meaningscholars disagree
of Courtenay
From the French place name Courtenay, generally read as a Gallo-Roman personal name Curtenus plus a suffix marking a landholding. A second and older account derives the surname from the Old French court nez, 'short nose', as a byname — which medieval chroniclers repeated about the Courtenay family. The place-name reading is the better supported.
How the name formed
- Curtenus
- Courtenay
- Courtney
- Cortney
Related forms: Courtenay · Courtney · Kortney
Pronouncing Cortney
KORT-nee
Two syllables, stress on the first. All the spellings are said identically.
Nicknames for Cortney
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
- 1963
- Most girls named
- 19901,261 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #226reached in 1990
- Change vs 2021
- 0.0%5 in 2023, 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.
Cortney in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Courtenay in French — related form
- Courtney in English — spelling variant
- Kortney in English — spelling variant
Cortneys among us
people named Cortney 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
Cortney has already lived its whole cycle: it rose, had its era, and has stepped off the charts. The fashion question is behind it — what lies ahead is the waiting room where revivals begin, once a name's first generation has grown distant enough for it to sound fresh again.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- A documented Norman family with a traceable place of origin and four centuries in England.
- This spelling is the tidiest, with no silent letters at all.
- Two firm syllables that pair well with almost any surname.
- Courtney is much the commoner spelling and will be assumed.
- The name is closely dated to the 1980s and 1990s in American records.
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Cortney
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Cortneys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 16,500 people named Cortney are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Cortney in 2025?
- Cortney is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Cortney with classmates?
- Cortney 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 Cortney? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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