Hoy
Masculine · “The high island”
Hoy is a Norse island name meaning the high island, and it is also an English boat — a small coastal trader whose hail to passing vessels is the reason anybody says ahoy.
How old is the name Hoy?
Hoy was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Hoy alive today was born around 1932, making them about 93 years old. About 200 people named Hoy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Hoy most popular?
Hoy peaked in 1880, reaching #682 nationally. See the whole 1880 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Hoy
A hoy was a small single-masted vessel that worked the coast and the estuaries, carrying passengers and goods where a full ship could not go, and it was common enough in English waters for centuries that its name entered ordinary speech. The hail used to attract one is the origin of the word still shouted across water, which arrived in English long before the telephone and was seriously proposed as the standard telephone greeting before hello won. Almost nobody who uses it knows they are calling a small coastal freighter.
Meaningscholars disagree
The high island
The Orkney island's Norse name joins the words for high and island, and the island is the tallest in the group. Whether an American bearer of this name takes it from the island, from the boat, or from a surname is not recorded.
Pronouncing Hoy
hoy
One syllable, rhyming with boy.
Nicknames for Hoy
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 192430 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #682reached in 1880
- Change vs 1976
- −28.6%5 in 2022, from 7
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.
Hoy in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Hoy in Norwegian — related form
Hoys among us
people named Hoy 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
Hoy 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
- It is one syllable and cannot be shortened or mispronounced.
- It points at a real island and a real vessel.
- It is genuinely and completely rare.
- It is also an exclamation, which will be used at him.
- It reads as a surname, which is the usual trade.
- Nothing in the record says which origin a family meant.
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Hoy
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Hoys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 200 people named Hoy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Hoy in 2025?
- Hoy is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Hoy with classmates?
- Hoy will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More H names
The most-given names starting with H, all years combined.
Henry#5 · Harold#991 · Harry#775 · Howard#1002 · Hunter#130 · Herbert#2641 · Herman#2363 · Harvey#251
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Hoy? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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