Cathay
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Cathay has been given to 30 babies in the U.S. since 1947. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1947, with 7 recorded.
Babies named Cathay, 1953
1 in 770,000
Cathay over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Cathay?
Cathay had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1953, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1953
- 1 in 770,000
- 5 of 3,852,460 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 376,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1953
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 534,066 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Cathay sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1953 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 534,066 children born in 1953 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Cathay. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Cathays were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Cathay was born before 1950 — so the typical Cathay is around 75 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1950s
- 56.7% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 100.0%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 17
- People you could plausibly meet
1950s — 56.7% of all recorded uses (17).
Is Cathay rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 1947 (7)
- Years since peak
- 78
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 22.6% average annual change
Spellings of Cathay
Cathay is not the most common spelling — Kathy is, with 61.0% against Cathay's <0.01%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Cathay by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Cathay
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Cathay
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.