Ebonee
Feminine · “a dense black wood”
Ebonee is the wood, respelled. Ebony came into English as the name of a timber so dense that a block of it sinks in water rather than floating, which is very nearly unique among woods and is the reason it was valued for centuries. As an American name it has a datable public source: a magazine founded in the middle of the nineteen forties took the word as its title and put it in front of a very large readership every month.
How old is the name Ebonee?
Ebonee first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Ebonee alive today was born around 1989, making them about 36 years old. About 1,600 people named Ebonee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ebonee most popular?
Ebonee peaked in 1983, reaching #1379 nationally. See the whole 1983 chart.
Where it comes from
From An Egyptian word for the timber, through Greek and Latin to Ebonee
The story of Ebonee
Ebony is heavier than water. Almost every other wood floats, because wood is mostly air, and the fact that a piece of this one goes straight to the bottom of a bucket is the sort of thing that gets a material remembered and traded across continents. It went into furniture, into piano keys, into the black pieces of chess sets, and into the vocabulary as the standard comparison for the color. As a name it belongs to the American word-name tradition, and unlike most of that tradition it has a specific and checkable entry point: a monthly magazine, founded just after the war, that used the word as its masthead and became one of the most widely read publications in the country. Names that arrive through print rather than through song tend to keep their spelling for a while and then fragment, and this spelling is one of the pieces.
Meaning
a dense black wood
The word names a specific timber rather than a color, and the color sense came afterwards from the timber. Its route into English runs back through Latin and Greek to an Egyptian word, which makes it one of a small handful of ancient Egyptian words still in daily English use. The double-e ending on this spelling changes nothing about the sense; it moves the written name away from the dictionary entry, which is usually the whole intention behind a respelling of a word-name.
How the name formed
- An Egyptian word for the timber, through Greek and Latin
- Ebony in English as wood and then as color
- A magazine title putting the word in front of readers
- Ebonee, Eboni and Ebonie as respellings
Pronouncing Ebonee
EB-uh-nee
Three syllables with the stress on the first, identical to the ordinary word. The double e at the end is doing exactly what a single y would do, so the respelling is visible on paper and inaudible in speech.
Nicknames for Ebonee
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
- 1971
- Most girls named
- 199197 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1379reached in 1983
- Change vs 2010
- −11.1%8 in 2012, from 9
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.
Ebonees among us
people named Ebonee 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
Ebonee sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The sound is completely familiar, so the name is never mispronounced even when it is misspelled.
- It stands far enough from the dictionary spelling to read as a name rather than as a noun.
- It has a documented public origin, which most names of its generation cannot claim.
- Four spellings are in circulation and this is not the one people will guess from hearing it.
- The word is still audible inside the name, and some listeners will hear the noun before the person.
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Ebonee
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Ebonees are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Ebonee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ebonee in 2025?
- Ebonee is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Ebonee with classmates?
- Ebonee will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More E names
The most-given names starting with E, all years combined.
Elizabeth#17 · Emily#34 · Emma#3 · Evelyn#8 · Ella#29 · Eleanor#12 · Erin#833 · Edna#2458
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ebonee? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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