Cory
Masculine · Old Norse roots
Cory is given to both — 127,179 boys and 6,599 girls since 1880. See Cory as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Cory arrives already short — two beats, one obvious pronunciation, nothing to spell out twice. It comes to us as a surname first, carried in England and Ireland long before anyone thought to hand it to a baby, and it crossed the Atlantic the way surnames do, on ships and in parish books. As a given name it has had a full arc in America: a long climb, a strong stretch, and now a quieter run.
How old is the name Cory?
Cory first appears in US birth records in 1924 — 101 years ago. The typical Cory alive today was born around 1986, making them about 39 years old. About 120,000 people named Cory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cory most popular?
Cory peaked in 1988, reaching #59 nationally. Today it ranks #1244, 1,185 places below that high. See the whole 1988 chart.
Cory appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Kóri (Old Norse personal name) to Cory
The story of Cory
Cory begins as a family name rather than a first name. It is recorded in English registers — Norfolk and the West Country among them — and separately in Ireland and Scotland, where similar-sounding surnames arose from unrelated local words. Emigration brought all of those spellings to North America, where they blurred together, and the American habit of promoting surnames to first names did the rest: Cory and its twin Corey were both in circulation as given names through the twentieth century, rising together and slipping back together.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
The surname behind it has more than one credible source. One line traces it to the Old Norse personal name Kóri, carried into England by Norse settlers. Another traces it to Gaelic coire, 'cauldron' — used in Scotland for the round hollow scooped into a hillside, which English borrowed as 'corrie'. A third points to the Irish surname Ó Comhraidhe. Families named Cory in different places may honestly descend from different roots.
How the name formed
- KóriOld Norse personal name
- CoryEnglish surname
- Cory / Coreygiven name
Related forms: Corey · Kory · Cori · Corrie · Kóri
Pronouncing Cory
KOR-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first, rhyming with 'story'. There is no second pronunciation to correct.
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
- 1924
- Most boys named
- 19886,266 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #59reached in 1988
- Change vs 2023
- −8.0%160 in 2025, from 174
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
- Kory in English — spelling variant
- Cori in English — spelling variant
- Corrie in Scots / Scottish English — related form
- Kóri in Old Norse — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Corys among us
people named Cory are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 10,675 born in 2025 was named Cory
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cory
- #1244
- Cory on the 2025 chart
- #698
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cory went to 160 boys in 2025, but Kory, Kori and Cori and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 234, which makes it the 698th most-given boys’ name of the year — 546 places above the chart.
About 1 boy in 7,299 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 10,675 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 Eddie 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: Eddie climbed just as high around 1910, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Eddie's path sketches the road Cory is walking now.
Cory is coming down from a big peak (#59 in 1988). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Cory is headed
Cory should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Cory beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cory in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Reads correctly on first sight for English speakers — no silent letters, no stress to explain.
- Already short, so no nickname is required; it holds up on a name tag and on a résumé alike.
- Doubles as the natural short form of Cornelius, Corbin, Cordell and Corwin if a longer legal name is wanted.
- Rests on a surname with a long recorded history in England, Ireland and Scotland, so it is inherited rather than invented.
- The Corey / Cory / Kory / Cori spellings all sound identical, so expect to spell it aloud fairly often, and expect mail addressed to the other version.
- It carries a clear generational stamp: it is well represented among adults, less so among children, and it has not yet come back around the way older names do. A child would likely be the only one in the class.
- Cory and its variants have been given to girls as well as boys, mostly in the Corey and Cori spellings. That rarely causes confusion in person, but it does mean forms and mailing lists sometimes guess wrong.
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Cory
Masculine · Old Norse roots · #1244 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 120,000 people named Cory are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cory?
- Cory is the most-used spelling in US records — 160 of the 234 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kory, Kori, Cori and Khori.
- How popular is the name Cory in 2025?
- Cory ranks #1244 among US boy names in 2025, with 160 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cory?
- About 1 in every 10,675 US boys born in 2025 was named Cory — 160 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.
Wisdom#1244 · Oakland#1244 · Kole#1244 · Ravi#1244 · Rian#1244 · Jet#1244 · Cedar#1244 · Mazi#1241
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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