Mccoy
Masculine · “Son of Aodh”
Mccoy is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 4,568 boys against 105 girls since 1880.
Mccoy comes from the Gaelic Mac Aodha, "son of Aodh" — a name carried by Scottish and Irish families for centuries before it ever sat in a first-name slot. Most American ears already know the shape of it from the phrase "the real McCoy," which means a stranger rarely has to ask how to say it. Two syllables, the stress landing hard on the second: muh-KOY.
How old is the name Mccoy?
Mccoy first appears in US birth records in 1905 — 120 years ago. The typical Mccoy is a kid of about 8 — this name's wave is very recent. About 4,000 people named Mccoy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mccoy most popular?
Mccoy peaked in 2025, reaching #805 nationally. Today it ranks #805, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aodh to Mccoy
The story of Mccoy
Aodh was a common personal name in medieval Ireland and Gaelic Scotland, and families descended from a man of that name became Mac Aodha — rendered by English-speaking clerks as MacCoy, McCoy, McKay, Mackie and half a dozen other ways, depending on who was holding the pen. The McCoys of Ulster and the west of Scotland shared ancestry with the Mackays, and emigration spread every variant across North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In America the surname picked up a life of its own: the Appalachian Hatfield–McCoy feud of the late nineteenth century, and the phrase "the real McCoy," whose origin has never been settled among competing candidates. Its use as a given name is a recent American habit, part of a broader move of Scots-Irish surnames to the front of the name.
Meaning
Son of Aodh — Aodh being an old Gaelic personal name meaning "fire"
The surname is an anglicization of Mac Aodha. The same root produced Mackay, Mackey and McHugh, so all four are cousins under different spellings.
How the name formed
- Aodh
- Mac Aodha
- MacCoy
- McCoy
- Mccoy
Related forms: Mac Aodha · MacAoidh · Mackay · McHugh · Mackey · McCoy
Pronouncing Mccoy
muh-KOY
Stress on the second syllable. The "Mc" is swallowed to a quick uh sound, exactly as in the familiar phrase; almost nobody gets this one wrong out loud.
Nicknames for Mccoy
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
- 1905
- Most boys named
- 2025309 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #805reached in 2025
- Change vs 2023
- +36.7%309 in 2025, from 226
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.
Mccoy in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mac Aodha in Irish — same name
- MacAoidh in Scottish Gaelic — same name
- Mackay in English (Scotland) — related form
- McHugh in English (Ireland) — related form
- Mackey in English — related form
- McCoy in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Utah, Texas, Minnesota.
Mccoys among us
people named Mccoy are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 5,528 born in 2025 was named Mccoy
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 Jovanny test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mccoy's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jovanny climbed just as high around 2006, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jovanny's path sketches the road Mccoy is walking now.
Mccoy 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 Mccoy is headed
Mccoy should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Mccoy beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mccoy in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A pronunciation nearly every American English speaker already knows, thanks to a phrase in common use — no correcting strangers.
- Traceable to a documented Gaelic root, Mac Aodha, shared with Mackay, Mackey and McHugh — real family history for anyone with Scots-Irish lines.
- Ready-made short forms: Coy, which stands alone as a given name, and Mac.
- One or two syllables in practice, ending on a strong open vowel, so it carries well when called across a yard.
- The capitalization is a lifelong nuisance. Official records flatten it to Mccoy, while most people write McCoy by instinct. Decide which form goes on the birth certificate and expect the other to show up anyway.
- It reads as a surname first. Forms, roll calls and databases will sometimes file it in the last-name column, and a child with an Irish or Scottish surname of their own may sound like two family names in a row.
- People will say "the real McCoy" — affectionately, and often. There is also the Hatfield–McCoy feud, which is where a fair number of Americans first met the name.
- A child with this name will likely be the only one in the school, which cuts both ways: no last-initial disambiguation, and no one else to share it with.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Mccoy
Masculine · #805 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Mccoys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,000 people named Mccoy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Mccoy in 2025?
- Mccoy ranks #805 among US boy names in 2025, with 309 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mccoy?
- About 1 in every 5,528 US boys born in 2025 was named Mccoy — 309 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mccoy with classmates?
- Mccoy will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mccoy
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dilan#805 · Brewer#804 · Lennon#807 · Douglas#807 · Azai#809 · Brock#810 · Kaisen#800 · Rohan#810
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mccoy? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Mccoy and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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