Stanley
Meaning
stony clearing (place-name surname)
Goes by Stan
Immortalized by Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Stanley peaked in the 1910s and the 1920s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
2,577 people · the #4,332 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 76,923 · median age 29
Among people named Stanley living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1990s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 92 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Stanley
People given the name Stanley in the United States span the generations: the middle half were born anywhere from 1950 to 1989. Age is the one thing the name won't tell you.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Stanley deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Stanley 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 Stanley fits with your family’s names and surname.
Where Stanley travels
Chinese American · from the stony field; a steady early-generation classic
Polish · stony meadow (an English surname name). The name a generation of Stanisławs took at American schools and mills, so standard in Polonia that baseball's Stan Musial, born Stanisław Franciszek to a Polish immigrant family, carried it to the Hall of Fame; it still works as the English half of the Stanisław tradition.
Keep exploring
Nicknames for Stanley · British and London baby names · Chinese American baby names · Polish baby names
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