Sidney

Where Sidney comes from

From Old English *Sīdaneġ, the name of a place in Surrey, from sīd (“wide”) + eġ (“island”).
— Wiktionary's entry for Sidney
  • 2 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #95 among boys — 142 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1912
    Peak, #80
    1,003 babies named Sidney — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1924
    Sidney Lumet born
    American director, producer and screenwriter
  4. 1927
    Sidney Poitier born
    Bahamian and American actor and diplomat
  5. 1971
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #380.
  6. 2022
    Mostly boys from here
    Until now more girls than boys got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
In the dictionary
  • A male or female given name transferred from the surname.
Namesakes
  • Sidney Poitier · Bahamian and American actor and diplomat, 1927–2022
  • Sidney Lumet · American director, producer and screenwriter, 1924–2011
  • Sidney Sheldon · American writer, 1917–2007
  • Sidney Altman · Canadian American molecular biologist, 1939–2022
  • Sidney Govou · French footballer, born 1979

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.