Crosby
Masculine · “farm or village by the cross”
Crosby is given to both — 5,878 boys and 612 girls since 1880. See Crosby as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Crosby was a place before it was a person. Norse settlers in northern England built farmsteads they named with the ending -by, and a Crosby was the one marked by a cross — several villages in Cumbria, Merseyside, Lincolnshire and the Isle of Man still carry the name today. It says itself the way it looks: two beats, with a soft z in the middle.
How old is the name Crosby?
Crosby first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Crosby is a kid of about 10 — this name's wave is very recent. About 5,600 people named Crosby are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Crosby most popular?
Crosby peaked in 2015, reaching #578 nationally. Today it ranks #1235, 657 places below that high. See the whole 2015 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Old Norse kross + býr to Crosby
The story of Crosby
The name comes out of the Danelaw, the stretch of northern and eastern England settled by Scandinavians from the ninth century on, where Norse and English speech mixed and left a permanent layer of place names behind. Families who came from one of those villages were called de Crosby, and the surname settled across northern England, Scotland and Ireland from the medieval period onward. Emigration carried it to North America, where for generations it was known chiefly as a last name — most famously in music and in sport. Its move to the front of the name, following the wider American habit of promoting surnames to first names, is a much more recent chapter.
Meaning
farm or village by the cross
From Old Norse kross (cross) and býr (farm, settlement) — the same -by ending found in Whitby, Grimsby and Derby.
How the name formed
- Old Norse kross + býr
- Crosbyvillage name, northern England and the Isle of Man
- de Crosbysurname
- Crosbygiven name
Related forms: Crosbie · Crosbey
Pronouncing Crosby
KROZ-bee
Two syllables, stress on the first. The s is pronounced as a z, as in the surname Americans already know.
Nicknames for Crosby
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
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 2015484 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #578reached in 2015
- Change vs 2023
- −21.4%162 in 2025, from 206
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.
Crosby in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Crosbie in Scots/Irish English — spelling variant
- Crosbey in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Minnesota, California, Texas.
Crosbys among us
people named Crosby are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 10,544 born in 2025 was named Crosby
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 Jessica test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Crosby's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jessica climbed just as high around 1985, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jessica's path sketches the road Crosby is walking now.
Crosby 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 Crosby is headed
Crosby is easing off slowly — about 22% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium 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.
Crosby beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Crosby in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelling and sound match: most English speakers can write it after hearing it once, and read it aloud without hesitation.
- Long documented history — a Norse place name, then an English, Scottish and Irish surname, in continuous use for centuries.
- Fits the established American pattern of surnames used as first names, so it needs no explaining as a category.
- Rare enough in playgrounds that a child is unlikely to share it, while the word itself is entirely familiar.
- It reads as a surname to most ears, so expect the occasional question about whether it is a family name — easy to answer, but it comes up.
- Close to Cosby in sound and in typing, a surname that now carries an unwelcome association. Worth knowing about rather than worrying over.
- No traditional short form. Cros and Croz exist informally, but a child who wants a nickname may have to invent one.
- Its rise as a given name is very recent, so it currently sits with young children rather than across all ages — which also means it dates the era it came from.
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Crosby
Masculine · #1235 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Crosbys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,600 people named Crosby are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Crosby in 2025?
- Crosby ranks #1235 among US boy names in 2025, with 162 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Crosby?
- About 1 in every 10,544 US boys born in 2025 was named Crosby — 162 in all.
- Will my child share the name Crosby with classmates?
- Crosby will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Crosby
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Viktor#1235 · Marc#1235 · Eliyahu#1235 · Yasin#1235 · Westen#1235 · Mattias#1231 · Mike#1231 · Kendall#1231
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Crosby? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Crosby and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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