Courtney comes from the Norman French surname Courtenay, originally a place name meaning "domain of Curtius"; the popular reading "short nose", from court nez, is a later folk etymology. Once a male name, it became one of the defining girls' names of the 1980s and 1990s in the United States, with bearers such as Courtney Love and Courteney Cox. It still ranked number 59 in 2000, left the top 1000 in 2018 and has fallen to number 2335 in 2025.