← Back to The Early Middle Ages
Girl · Norman French place name
Courtney
Say it: KORT-nee
Meaning
From the Norman surname Courtenay, taken from places in France named after a Gallo-Roman estate owner; the popular gloss 'short nose' is a folk etymology.
Likelythe main view, with some doubt.
A male aristocratic name in England, it became a common American girls' name in the 1980s and 1990s.
Its wave through time
A fashion of the 1990s
In the United States
- 280,669 babies given this name since 1881
- At its height in 1990, about 1 in 123 girls
- 217 babies in 2020
Through the ages
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Kourtney, Cortney, Courtenay
Famous bearers
- Courteney Cox, American actress
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Royal and noble genealogies
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.