Name Awesome

Cathey

Girls' name

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Cathey has been given to 2,216 babies in the U.S. since 1939. 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 1953, with 157 recorded.

Babies named Cathey, 1983

1 in 693,000

Cathey over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015020018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Cathey: meaning, origin, and history

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Cathey means

Cathey is a given name.

The naming story behind Cathey

Wikidata records Cathey as a given name. The entity identifier is Q100275478, and the classification was checked on 2026-10-20. The spelling matches a source label or alias exactly, without removing accents or linking it to a name merely because the letters look similar.

A database classification is different from an etymological explanation, so those questions remain open in the short meaning.

A modern root explanation needs an additional naming or linguistic reference.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,216 girls were recorded with the name Cathey between 1939 and 1983. Its highest annual count was 157 in 1953; its best national rank was #723 in 1953.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

How common is Cathey?

Cathey had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1983, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1983
1 in 693,000
5 of 3,463,011 births
Among girls only
1 in 334,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1983
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
480,076 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Cathey sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1983 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 480,076 children born in 1983 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Cathey. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Catheys were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Cathey was born before 1955 — so the typical Cathey is around 70 today.

Median birth year
1955
About 70 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
54.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
31.4%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
1,800
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 54.2% of all recorded uses (1,200).

Is Cathey 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 1953 (157)
Years since peak
72
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
15.3% average annual change
Best rank ever
#723
1953

Spellings of Cathey

Cathey is not the most common spelling — Kathy is, with 50.4% against Cathey's 0.33%.

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.

Where Cathey is used

Across 1910–2025, Cathey was most concentrated in Oklahoma — about 1 in 14,286 girls, against 1 in 75,216 across all states with data. It was least common in Virginia (1 in —).

07 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Oklahoma1 in 14,286
  2. 2Tennessee1 in 16,667
  3. 3North Carolina1 in 25,000
  4. 4Arkansas1 in 33,333
  5. 5Texas1 in 33,333
  6. 6Louisiana1 in 50,000
  7. 7Mississippi1 in 100,000
  8. 8South Carolina1 in 100,000

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Cathey has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Cathey by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#723
1953
Peak year
1953
157 that year
First recorded
1939
Last recorded
1983
All-time count
2,216
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Cathey

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

CatieCattleyaCateCaterinaCatoriCatinaCatlinCatelynCatarinaCathiCathieCatrinaCatlynCatalayaCathernCathrynCatriceCataliaKatheyCateraCatherynCattaleyaCataleaCataleya

Names with a curve like Cathey

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Cathey, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

JannCheryllJoetteGwendaBrindaSheilahPameliaGlindaPamellaCindaDremaCorliss

Sibling names for Cathey

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Cathey

Top names of 1953, Cathey's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1953Girls' names starting with C