Cydney
A feminine name of Greek origin meaning "woman from Sidon".
Name Census estimates that about 4,854 living Americans carry the first name Cydney. It is a predominantly female name (99.5% of registrations). The average person named Cydney today is around 31 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Cydney births was 2000 (230 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Cydney. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Cydney with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
4.9K
~ 1 in 70,613 Americans
Peak year
2000
230 babies that year
Average age
31
years old
2005 SSA rank
#7,654
Tracked since 1942
Census
Cydney in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 4,706 people with the first name Cydney, which placed it at #4,097 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#4,097
National first-name rank
People counted
4.7K
4,706 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
58.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Cydney
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cydney is White at 58.0%. The next largest groups are Black (27.5%) and Two or More Races (6.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Cydney described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Cydney at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White58.0% · 2,728
- Black or African American27.5% · 1,295
- Two or more races6.5% · 306
- Hispanic or Latino5.2% · 245
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.0% · 96
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 36
Gender
Gender distribution for Cydney
Out of the 5,160 babies given the name Cydney since 1880, 99.5% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Cydney as a male name
- Ranked #10,355 in 2005
- 6 male births in 2005
- Peak: 1996 (8 births)
Cydney as a female name
- Ranked #7,654 in 2024
- 14 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1998 (227 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Cydney leans strongly female. 4,624 people counted with this name were female (98.4%), compared with 77 male bearers (1.6%).
Popularity
Cydney: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Cydney from the 1940s through to the 2020s, spanning 9 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 1,775 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Cydney by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Cydney during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Cydneys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 32 states and territories. California, Texas, Georgia recorded the most babies named Cydney, while West Virginia, South Carolina, Alaska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 77 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Cydney
The name Cydney is a modern English variant of the name Sydney, which itself is an anglicized form of the French place name Saint-Denis. Saint-Denis was the name of a Christian martyr and saint who lived in the 3rd century AD and was the first bishop of Paris. The name ultimately derives from the ancient Greek name Dionysios, meaning "belonging to Dionysus" or "follower of Dionysus", the Greek god of wine, vegetation, pleasure, festivity, and wild frenzy.
While the name Sydney has been in use in English since the Middle Ages, the spelling variant Cydney is relatively new, first appearing in the early 20th century. It is believed to have originated as a feminized form of the masculine name Sidney, itself an anglicized version of the French Saint-Denis.
The earliest known bearer of the name Cydney was Cydney Dinsmore, an American actress born in 1906 in Kansas City, Missouri. She appeared in several films throughout the 1930s and 1940s, including roles in The Gay Bride (1935) and Swing Parade of 1946 (1946).
Another notable historical figure named Cydney was Cydney Wilkes, an American track and field athlete who competed in the long jump and shot put events. She won a gold medal in the long jump at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London.
In the world of literature, Cydney Krone was an American author and illustrator best known for her children's books, including the popular series Amber Brown. She was born in 1943 and published her first book, Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon, in 1994.
Cydney O'Sullivan was an Irish-American businesswoman and entrepreneur who founded the cosmetics company O'Sullivan Cosmetics in the 1960s. She was born in 1925 in Dublin, Ireland, and her company was one of the first to introduce mineral-based makeup products to the market.
Another notable figure named Cydney was Cydney Bernard, an American lawyer and civil rights activist. She was born in 1933 and played a key role in the desegregation of public schools in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.
People
Cydney + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Cydney as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Cydney: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Cydney?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 4,854 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Cydney going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 70,613 US residents.
Is Cydney a common name?
We classify Cydney as "Rare". It ranks above 96.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 5,160 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Cydney most popular?
The single biggest year for Cydney was 2000, when 230 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Cydney is about 31 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Cydney in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 4,706 people with the name Cydney, or 1.56 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #4,097 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Cydney in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Cydney?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Cydney leans strongly female. 4,624 people counted with this name were female (98.4%), compared with 77 male bearers (1.6%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Cydney?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cydney is White at 58.0%. The next largest groups are Black (27.5%) and Two or More Races (6.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Cydney most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Cydney in the 2020 Census, accounting for 58.0% (2,728 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Cydney in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Cydney a female name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Cydney in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Cydney still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Cydney in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Cydney can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Cydney?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.