Bowie
Meaning
surname meaning 'yellow-haired'; popularized by David Bowie
The story
Bowie is a Scottish surname from the Gaelic buidhe, yellow-haired, once a way of pointing out the blond one in the clan. David Robert Jones borrowed it in the 1960s, reportedly to avoid confusion with another singing Davy Jones, and made it shorthand for reinvention itself: Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke, half a century of restless records from Space Oddity to Blackstar, the album released two days before his death in January 2016. As a given name Bowie is very new and happily unisex; its small American presence has come almost entirely in the last two decades, rising just as the world was celebrating and then mourning him, and it is hard not to notice the timing. It remains an uncommon, starlit choice, two bright syllables that promise a child permission to keep becoming someone new.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Bowie peaked in the 2020s.
When you meet Bowie
Most people given the name Bowie in the United States are children or teenagers today. The name belongs to this generation.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Bowie deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Bowie truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Bowie fits with your family’s names and surname.
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