Cory
Feminine · “Irish or Norse surname”
Cory is given to both — 6,599 girls and 127,179 boys since 1880. See Cory as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Unisex names in America almost never stay unisex, and they almost always end up female. Cory, Kelly, Tracy, Shannon, Jamie and Robin all had a shared decade in the 1970s and then tipped one way — and the tipping only ever goes in one direction.
How old is the name Cory?
Cory first appears in US birth records in 1932 — 93 years ago. The typical Cory alive today was born around 1981, making them about 44 years old. About 6,300 people named Cory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cory most popular?
Cory peaked in 1978, reaching #602 nationally. Today it ranks #7491, 6,889 places below that high. See the whole 1978 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Ó Comhraidhe to Cory
The story of Cory
The one-way street is one of the better-documented regularities in naming. When a name is used for both sexes, boys' families withdraw from it and girls' families do not, so the shared period ends with the name female. Ashley, Leslie, Beverly, Evelyn, Shirley, Meredith and Vivian were all men's names in England or America within the last two centuries. The reverse — a girls' name becoming a boys' name — is close to unattested at scale. Cory ran the pattern in the 1970s: it rose for both sexes, and the female curve peaks in 1978 while the male continued longer, with the two never quite crossing. The result is that Cory reads as male in America today, and the female cohort is a specific fifteen-year window.
Meaningscholars disagree
Irish or Norse surname, of contested origin
Several sources feed the surname. Irish Ó Comhraidhe, from a personal name sometimes read as ravine or hollow; Norse Kori, a personal name of unclear sense; and an English place name from a Cornish or Devon locality. None is dominant. As a modern given name Cory also serves as a short form of Cornelius, Corinne and Corey, and the female use has no separate etymology.
How the name formed
- Ó Comhraidhe
- Corey
- Cory
Related forms: Corey · Kori
Pronouncing Cory
KOR-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first. Cory, Corey, Cori and Kori are pronounced identically; only the spelling carries any signal, and even that is weak.
Nicknames for Cory
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
- 1932
- Most girls named
- 1978283 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #602reached in 1978
- Change vs 2023
- +7.7%14 in 2025, from 13
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.
Cory in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Corey in English — spelling variant
- Kori in English — spelling variant
Corys among us
people named Cory are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 114,805 born in 2025 was named Cory
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cory
- #7491
- Cory on the 2025 chart
- #571
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cory went to 14 girls in 2025, but Kori, Cori and Khori and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 8 spellings went to 423, which makes it the 571st most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,920 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 3,800 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 114,805 for Cory 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 Norene test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cory's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Norene climbed just as high around 1931, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Norene's path sketches the road Cory is walking now.
Cory 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
Cory beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cory in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is short, phonetic and impossible to mispronounce.
- It works in every English-speaking country without adjustment.
- The -y spelling is the simplest of the four in use.
- In current America the name reads as male to most people.
- Corey, Cori and Kori all compete for the same sound.
- The female peak dates a bearer to the 1970s fairly precisely.
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What they receive
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Cory
Feminine · #7491 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Corys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 6,300 people named Cory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cory?
- Cory is one of 8 recorded spellings. Kori is the more common one — 260 births in 2025 against 14 for Cory.
- How popular is the name Cory in 2025?
- Cory ranks #7491 among US girl names in 2025, with 14 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cory?
- About 1 in every 114,805 US girls born in 2025 was named Cory — 14 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cory with classmates?
- Cory will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cory
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Christie#7491 · Carmelita#7491 · Jetta#7491 · Hildegard#7491 · Rickie#7491 · Billy#7491 · Angelyn#7491 · Jewell#7491
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cory? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cory and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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