Name Awesome

Cathi

Girls' name

Possibly each of the two, through Cathy

Cathi has been given to 2,536 babies in the U.S. since 1942. 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 1961, with 162 recorded.

Babies named Cathi, 1990

1 in 790,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Cathi: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly each of the two, through Cathy

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Cathi means

Cathi belongs to the name family reached through Cathi → Cathy → Catherine. Its meaning is “each of the two”.

Origin, language, and formation

Cathi is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Cathy and Catherine.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,536 girls were recorded with the name Cathi between 1942 and 1990. Its highest annual count was 162 in 1961; its best national rank was #795 in 1958.

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.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Cathi?

Cathi had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1990, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1990
1 in 790,000
5 of 3,949,959 births
Among girls only
1 in 379,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1990
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
547,582 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Cathi 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 1990 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 547,582 children born in 1990 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Cathi. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Cathis were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Cathi was born before 1960 — so the typical Cathi is around 65 today.

Median birth year
1960
About 65 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
38.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
26.3%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
2,342
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 38.9% of all recorded uses (986).

Is Cathi 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 1961 (162)
Years since peak
64
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
34.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#795
1958

Spellings of Cathi

Cathi is not the most common spelling — Kathy is, with 49.1% against Cathi's 0.37%.

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 Cathi is used

Across 1910–2025, Cathi was most concentrated in California — about 1 in 50,000 girls, against 1 in 108,646 across all states with data. It was least common in Wisconsin (1 in —).

02 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in 50,000
  2. 2Indiana1 in 50,000
  3. 3Ohio1 in 50,000
  4. 4Florida1 in 100,000
  5. 5Iowa1 in 100,000
  6. 6Illinois1 in 100,000
  7. 7Michigan1 in 100,000
  8. 8New York1 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. Cathi has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Cathi around the world

Where Cathi ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • South Australia
    1956–1956
    #540
    in 1956

Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Cathi

People whose public names include Cathi, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Cathi in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Cathi. Linked forms have their own page here.

CathyCathie

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Cathi 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
#795
1958
Peak year
1961
162 that year
First recorded
1942
Last recorded
1990
All-time count
2,536
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Cathi

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

CatieCateCatheyCaterinaCattleyaCatinaCatarinaCatoriCathieCatelynCatlinCatrinaCatiaCatyCathrynCatlynCatalayaCatheCathernAdithiCatriceCataliaCataleyaCatera

Names with a curve like Cathi

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

LiseMerriDebbiBeckieTariDelindaRoxaneDebiPenniTondaDorindaTrudi

Sibling names for Cathi

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 Cathi

Top names of 1961, Cathi's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1958Girls' names starting with C