Barney
Barney is a boy's name that peaked in 1919, when it was the 319th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 12,008th. About 5,700 Barneys are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 67.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Barney boys named Barney
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 16,181
- Estimated living today
- 5,700
- Median age today
- 67
- Peak year
- 1919
- Best rank
- 319th
- Rank in 2025
- 12,008th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 91 / 16,090
How old the living Barneys are
born that year still alive today
Of the 16,181 babies given the name since 1880, about 5,700 are alive — 35 in every hundred. Roughly 50 of them are children and 3,300 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1958 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
From either the Old English personal name Bera (genitive singular Beran) or from Old English beren (“growing with barley”) + īeġ (“island”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Barneys
- Barney Frank (1940–2026)American politician
- Barney Kessel (1923–2004)American jazz guitarist
- Barney Ewell (1918–1996)athletics competitor
- Barney Greenway (born 1969)British vocalist
- Barney Bigard (1906–1980)American jazz clarinetist, jazz musician
- Barney Martin (1923–2005)American actor
- Barney Oldfield (1878–1946)American racing driver
- Barney McKenna (1939–2012)Irish musician
People named Barney with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Barney is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Barney is most concentrated in Mississippi (3.4×), Alabama (3.1×), South Carolina (3.1×), Georgia (2.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1919
The most popular boys’ names the year Barney peaked:
Barney elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Barney | 2,551 | 246th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Barney | 28 | 374th |
| Ireland boys | Barney | 27 | 572nd |
| Scotland boys | Barney | 26 | 522nd |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Related names
Barney against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.