Peabody
loc · Latin script
Meaning: probably from a medieval nickname for a flamboyantly dressed person, from Middle English pe ‘peacock’ + body ‘body, person’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Peabody is a name written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.
- United States (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 7 (measured from records)
no count published
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
probably from a medieval nickname for a flamboyantly dressed person, from Middle English pe ‘peacock’ + body ‘body, person’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Peabody counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 5.3K | — | 7 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 364 | — | 2 |
| ES Spain | — | 11 | — | — |
| CZ Czechia | — | 3 | — | — |
| BE Belgium | — | 1 | — | — |
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 — Surname Frequency 2010; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); MVČR — living population register 2017; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register). 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Peabody is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Perhaps ‘servant of Pay’ (OE Pæga, bodig); first attested Thomas Paybodie 1615 Oxon. Peberdy may also be local, from Pebworth (Gloucestershire).
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, dresser, from MEpe Peacock + body Body, person.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, A surname transferred from the nickname.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, Pour Littré, dans son Supplément , le peabody est une « sorte de fusil, ainsi dit du nom de l’inventeur ». Aucun autre dictionnaire ne cite ce fusil ni son inventeur.
as a name2500 noms propres devenus communs : dictionnaire étymologique (éponymes, antonomases et hypallages)
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)
- George Peabodyb. 1795USAmerican-British entrepreneur and philanthropist (1795–1869)
- Elizabeth P. Peabodyb. 1804USAmerican educator 1804-1894
- Mary Tyler Mannb. 1806USnot in their usual nameAmerican teacher, author, education reformer and politician (1806-1887)
- Sophia Hawthorneb. 1809USnot in their usual nameAmerican artist (1809-1871)
- George Foster Peabodyb. 1852USAmerican banker and philanthropist (1852-1938)
- Endicott Peabodyb. 1857USEpiscopal priest, headmaster (1857-1944)
- Francis S. Peabodyb. 1858USAmerican businessman (1859-1922)
- Caresse Crosbyb. 1892USnot in their usual nameAmerican publisher, activist, and inventor of the bra (1892–1970)
- Dick Peabodyb. 1925USAmerican actor (1925-1999)
- Sandra Casselb. 1948USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 13 sources across 5 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 5.3K | #6,367 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 5.3K | #5,969 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 5.1K | #6,390 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 364 | #14,310 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 11 | #114,632 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 3 | #140,417 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 3 | #22,393 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 1 | #168,933 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Peabody mean, and where does it come from?
- probably from a medieval nickname for a flamboyantly dressed person, from Middle English pe ‘peacock’ + body ‘body, person’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Peabody have the most bearers?
- Peabody is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Peabody?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/peabodyThe 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, “Peabody”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.