Cy

given name · Latin script

Meaning: Acronym of calendar year (kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations))

A male name· listed as male by the registers that count names by sex

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 13 countries

/saɪ/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary

Say it inExplore pronunciation →

Cy is a male given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country: 3,403 people, counted by the Census Bureau in 2020.

  • HKHong Kong≈1 in 3.9Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 19Kfew records
  • SGSingapore≈1 in 20Kfew records

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

3,403 people, 2020

Record sources
333 (measured from records)

corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling

strongest: highest-authority source

≈1 in 3.9K (inferred from the name graph)

Hong Kong, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)Make your nomograph ✦

How to pronounce Cy

  • English:/saɪ/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary

Meaning & origin

(measured from records)

Acronym of calendar year.

Cited for this meaning 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world

(measured from records)

Cy counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Cy is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—3,4031 in 98K3.2KCy333
NG Nigeria—≈2,300 est.≈1 in 100KlistedCy22
HK Hong Kong#658≈2,000 est.≈1 in 3.9K—Cy35
MY Malaysia—≈1,900 est.≈1 in 19K—Cy43
PH Philippines—≈740 est.≈1 in 156K—Cy47
TN Tunisia—≈690 est.≈1 in 18K—Cy14
SG Singapore—≈300 est.≈1 in 20K—Cy38
GY Guyana—91 in 83K9—1

3,403 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way

(inferred from the name graph)

Cy is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, Mexico, Colombia

    Also written C'Y, C-Y

  • French given name11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Canada, Cameroon

    Also written C-Y, Cy', Cý, Cÿ, Çÿ

  • Chinese given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, United States

    Also written C-Y

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written C-Y

  • Portuguese given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Philippines, Portugal

    Also written Çy, Cÿ

  • Malay given name7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, Indonesia, United States, Philippines

    Languages: Malay, Indonesian

    Also written Çy, Çý, Čý, Çÿ, Čy

59 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses

(measured from records)

Cy is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In cdo, manifest ability AA ability, talent. FHL as cleyer as pretty. RX famous for genius. + iB talent, ability

    as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect

  • English: short form of CYRUS , sometimes used in America as an independent given name.

    as a word

  • ISO 639-1 language code for Welsh.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In frm, here (in this place)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In cdo, area, grand, great, S

    as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name

(measured from records)
191019201930Cy Endfield, b. 1914Cy Twombly, b. 1928Cy Coleman, b. 1929
  • Cy Endfieldb. 1914USAmerican screenwriter and director (1914–1995)
  • Cy Twomblyb. 1928USAmerican painter, sculptor and photographer (1928–2011)
  • Cy Colemanb. 1929USAmerican composer, songwriter, and jazz pianist (1929-2004)

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

How to address them

(machine-generated)
FormalDear Colleague,
InformalHello,

Evidence

(measured from records)

No register attests this spelling yet

None of the official registers or reference works in our corpus lists Cy under this spelling. The statistics on this page rest on person records, and the related names are inferred from the name graph.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce Cy?
In English /saɪ/ (Wiktionary).
Is Cy a male or female name?
Cy is a male name. National registers that list it by sex list it as male: United States (Census Bureau, 2020).
What does the name Cy mean, and where does it come from?
Acronym of calendar year. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
What are other forms of the name Cy?
In the etymology graph, Kire is a form of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Cyril and Cyrus.
Which countries have the most people named Cy?
In the United States, the national register counted about 3.4 thousand people named Cy, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled cy. After it come Nigeria, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Philippines; the country table on this page ranks them.
How common is the name Cy?
In the United States, the national register counted 3,403 people named Cy in 2020, about 1 in 98 thousand residents.
How common is Cy compared with other names?
In Hong Kong, Cy is the 658th most common given name of 23,276 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Cy?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/cy

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Cy” — ranked 5139th in the United States (Census Bureau, 2020). Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Cy parses inside a full name →