Ebony
Feminine · “ebony wood”
Ebony is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 38,998 girls against 455 boys since 1880.
Ebony is a wood so dense it sinks in water, and the word for it has traveled further than most: Egyptian to Greek to Latin to French to English, keeping roughly the same shape for three thousand years.
How old is the name Ebony?
Ebony first appears in US birth records in 1950 — 75 years ago. The typical Ebony alive today was born around 1986, making them about 39 years old. About 38,000 people named Ebony are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ebony most popular?
Ebony peaked in 1982, reaching #132 nationally. Today it ranks #5410, 5,278 places below that high. See the whole 1982 chart.
Where it comes from
From hebeny to Ebony
The story of Ebony
Word names drawn from precious materials have a long history in English — Ruby, Pearl, Opal, Jade — and Ebony joined them in the twentieth century. Its rise in American use was sharp and specific: it climbed steeply through the 1970s and peaked in the early 1980s, part of a broader turn toward names that were chosen for their sound and their associations rather than inherited from a family or a calendar.
Meaning
ebony wood
From the Greek ebenos, borrowed from the Egyptian hebeny, the name of the tree and its timber. Ebony is the black heartwood of several tropical species, prized since antiquity for its hardness and used for everything from pharaonic furniture to piano keys.
How the name formed
- hebeny
- ebenos
- ebenus
- ebony
- Ebony
Related forms: Ébène · Ébano · Eboni
Pronouncing Ebony
EB-uh-nee
Three syllables, stress on the first. It is an ordinary English word and English speakers do not mispronounce it.
Nicknames for Ebony
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
- 1950
- Most girls named
- 19822,279 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #132reached in 1982
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%23 in 2025, from 23
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.
Ebony in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ébène in French — related form
- Ébano in Spanish — related form
- Eboni in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, North Carolina.
Ebonys among us
people named Ebony are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 69,881 born in 2025 was named Ebony
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 Jan test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ebony's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jan climbed just as high around 1954, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jan's path sketches the road Ebony is walking now.
Ebony 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
Ebony beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ebony in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One of the longest documented word-histories of any name on the chart, running back to ancient Egyptian.
- The meaning is concrete, and the material behind it is genuinely remarkable.
- Three syllables with a front stress, a rhythm that holds up well against a short surname.
- It is an ordinary English noun and adjective, so the name is never quite only a name.
- In American records it is closely associated with the 1980s.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Ebony to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Ebony? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Ebony
Feminine · #5410 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ebonys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 38,000 people named Ebony are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ebony in 2025?
- Ebony ranks #5410 among US girl names in 2025, with 23 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ebony?
- About 1 in every 69,881 US girls born in 2025 was named Ebony — 23 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ebony with classmates?
- Ebony will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ebony
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Aina#5410 · Sherry#5410 · Kathia#5410 · Taj#5410 · Analicia#5410 · Divya#5410 · Halimah#5410 · Leo#5410
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ebony? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ebony and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle