Sidney - Origin and Meaning of the name

[ 2 syll. si-dney, sid-n-ey ] The girl name Sidney is also used, though less frequently, as a boy name. It is pronounced SIHDNiy ^KEY. Sidney is of Old English and Latin origin. It is used mainly in English. Old English origin: It represents the transferred use of the geographic name and the surname as a given name. See Sidney for more info. Forms of Sidney include the English names Sydne, Sydnee, and Sydnie. Another form of the name is the English spelling variant Sydney.

Sidney is a form of the English Sidony.

Sidney is rather popular as a baby girl name. The name has been increasing in popularity since the 1980s. At the modest height of its usage in 1999, 0.063% of baby girls were named Sidney. It was #257 in rank then. In 2007, it ranked at #485 with a usage of 0.032%, and it was the 2nd most popular after the English Sydney, within all girl names in its family. It was 9 times more frequently used than Sidney in 2007. Although Sidney is today more frequently used for girls, there was a period prior to 1992 when more boys were given the name. After 1993, increasingly the name became more popular with girls than with boys. In 2006, 3 times more girls than boys were given the name Sidney.

Baby names that sound like Sidney include the English Sydne, the English Sydnee, the English Sydney, the English Sydnie, the German Stina, the French and German Sidonie, the English Sidony, the German Stine, and the German Sidonia.

^KEY: Pronunciation for Sidney: S as in "sea (S.IY)" ; IH as in "it (IH.T)" ; D as in "dee (D.IY)" ; N as in "knee (N.IY)" ; IY as in "eat (IY.T)"

Popularity Trend
for Sidney
from 1900 to 2007

Variant Popularity Chart
for Sidney
in 2007