Beverly

Where Beverly comes from

A variant spelling of Beverley.
— Wiktionary's entry for Beverly
  • From a surname
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1893
    First appearance
    #1,437 among girls, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1904
    Mostly girls from here
    Until now more boys than girls got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
  3. 1929
    Beverly Sills born
    American operatic soprano
  4. 1937
    Peak, #14
    9,634 babies named Beverly — more than any year before or since.
  5. 1951
    Beverly D'Angelo born
    American actress
  6. 1964
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #91.
In the dictionary
  • A unisex given name transferred from the surname.
  • A female given name transferred from the surname, popular in the 1930s to the 1950s in the U.S., partly because of its association with Beverly Hills (where the stars live).
  • A male given name transferred from the surname.
Namesakes
  • Beverly Sills · American operatic soprano, 1929–2007
  • Beverly D'Angelo · American actress, born 1951
  • Beverly Aadland · American film actress, 1942–2010
  • Beverly Cleary · American writer of children's books, 1916–2021

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.