# Gay (first name)

Source: https://namelineage.com/first-name/gay/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. US counts from the Social Security Administration; England and Wales counts from the Office for National Statistics; meaning and etymology from Wiktionary. Data updated 2026-11-11.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Usually given to | girls |
| Origin | not recorded |
| Meaning | not recorded |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Nicknames | none recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |
| US babies named this | 19,367 since 1880 |
| Boys / girls in the US | 1,382 / 17,985 (93% girls) |
| Babies in England and Wales | not in the ONS data |

## Popularity

The last 15 years of each series. A year is missing when too few babies were given the name for the agency to publish it: five in the US, three in England and Wales.

### United States, girls

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1966 | 235 | 620 |
| 1967 | 178 | 735 |
| 1968 | 169 | 768 |
| 1969 | 127 | 945 |
| 1970 | 122 | 1,019 |
| 1971 | 78 | 1,368 |
| 1972 | 59 | 1,570 |
| 1973 | 22 | 3,049 |
| 1974 | 30 | 2,517 |
| 1975 | 30 | 2,577 |
| 1976 | 16 | 4,019 |
| 1977 | 13 | 5,020 |
| 1978 | 8 | 7,161 |
| 1979 | 10 | 6,347 |
| 1982 | 6 | 9,597 |

### United States, boys

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1959 | 10 | 2,714 |
| 1960 | 11 | 2,589 |
| 1961 | 8 | 3,194 |
| 1962 | 6 | 3,783 |
| 1963 | 8 | 3,151 |
| 1964 | 7 | 3,398 |
| 1965 | 7 | 3,353 |
| 1966 | 9 | 2,858 |
| 1967 | 5 | 4,176 |
| 1968 | 6 | 3,860 |
| 1969 | 6 | 4,111 |
| 1970 | 7 | 3,989 |
| 1971 | 5 | 5,187 |
| 1972 | 6 | 4,628 |
| 1974 | 6 | 4,850 |

## People named Gay

- Marcia Gay Harden, American actress
- Gay Talese, American writer (born 1932)

## How to read these numbers

A count is babies registered with that name in that year, not people alive now, so a name common a century ago can have a large total and few recent births.