Sue
Meaning
lily (short form of Susan); famously borne by Sue Bird
The story
Sue is Susan pared down to one warm syllable, and Susan descends from the Hebrew Shoshannah, the lily. In mid-century America, Sue was everywhere, a given name in its own right and not just a nickname, so common that Johnny Cash could build a whole joke on a boy saddled with it in his 1969 hit A Boy Named Sue. The name faded steadily in the decades after that heyday, though it has never entirely vanished from the record books. Its greatest modern bearer is Sue Bird, the point guard who ran the Seattle Storm for two decades, won four league championships and five Olympic gold medals, and retired as one of the most respected leaders basketball has known. Today Sue reads as vintage, a grandmother's name waiting out its turn, armed with the kind of simplicity that tends to come back around eventually.
The formal names behind Sue
Sue is an established short form of this name.
Susan · Hebrew origin · lily
Sue around the world
One shared root links 10 names across 5 languages.
Shared root: from Hebrew Shoshannah "lily", via Greek Sousanna
The constellation
More branches
Sue in song
Runaround Sue
Dion (1961)
Dion's cautionary doo-wop stomp about a girl who could not be trusted, propelled by that hand-clapping bum-de-bum vocal chant.
A Boy Named Sue
Johnny Cash (1969)
Shel Silverstein's tall tale about a man hunting down the father who saddled him with a girl's name, recorded live at San Quentin with the inmates roaring along.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Sue peaked in the 1930s and the 1950s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
866 people · the #9,123 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 250,000 · median age 37
Among people named Sue living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1980s than in any other decade.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Sue
Most people given the name Sue in the United States were born between 1940 and 1969. The Sue you meet today is most often in her 60s or 70s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Sue deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Sue 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 Sue fits with your family’s names and surname.
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