Humanverse

Sandy

Sandy is a girl's name that peaked in 1960, when it was the 126th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 2,998th. About 65,000 Sandys are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 60.

Popularity, 1880–2025

Births per year, 1880 to 2025 0 1k 2k 3k 4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

girls named Sandy boys named Sandy

Girls and boys called Sandy

Share of the name given to girls, 1880 to 2025 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

years more girls than boys years more boys than girls

Sandy crossed from boys to girls in 1937, and has stayed there for 89 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 95% girls, and in 2025 it was 82%.

The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 121 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.

By the numbers

Total US births
79,530
Estimated living today
65,000
Median age today
60
Peak year
1960
Best rank
126th
Rank in 2025
2,998th
First recorded
1880
Girls / boys
69,072 / 10,458

How old the living Sandys are

Born with the name each year, and how many of them are alive today, 1880 to 2025 0 1k 2k 3k 4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

born that year still alive today

Of the 79,530 babies given the name since 1880, about 65,000 are alive — 82 in every hundred. Roughly 2,100 of them are children and 21,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1965 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

Origin a diminutive

From clippings +.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Sandys

People named Sandy with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Sandy is most common

Relative to how many babies each state records, Sandy is most concentrated in California (1.6×), North Carolina (1.3×), Ohio (1.2×), Michigan (1.1×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1960

The most popular girls’ names the year Sandy peaked:

All the names of 1960

Sandy elsewhere

CountrySpelling BirthsBest rank
France girls Sandy 15,965 89th
France boys Sandy 2,240 212th
Scotland boys Sandy 488 124th
Belgium girls Sandy 400 244th
Italy girls Sandy 302
England and Wales girls Sandy 203 2,095th
England and Wales boys Sandy 98 1,897th
Ireland girls Sandy 7 747th
Poland girls Sandy 4 birth registrations 516th
Scotland girls Sandy 3 535th

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.

Sandy: rank by region

In 2012, Sandy was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.

Region Spelling Place Children
Wallonia Sandy 413 7

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Sandy among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

Country Spelling First forename Any forename
the Netherlands girls Sandy 2,613 2,831
the Netherlands boys Sandy 148 212
Finland girls Sandy 34 39
Finland boys Sandy 8 10

A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Where Sandy lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 211 women called Sandy were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Women: the provinces where it is densest

Province Spelling People Per thousand Place there
Balears, Illes Sandy 13 0.021 2,417
Palmas, Las Sandy 10 0.017 3,759
Alicante/Alacant Sandy 16 0.016 2,974
Málaga Sandy 15 0.016 2,524
Tarragona Sandy 6 0.014 2,956
Gipuzkoa Sandy 5 0.013 2,618

Listed in 12 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 40 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

Sandy against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

Compare Sandy with a name of your own

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.