How popular is the baby name Pixy in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Pixy.

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Popularity of the baby name Pixy


Posts that mention the name Pixy

For-profit baby names

California mom-to-be Natasha Hill — the woman who was supposed to be getting $5,000 for allowing strangers to name her unborn baby via the site Belly Ballot — isn’t really pregnant. She isn’t even really named “Natasha Hill.”

Her name is Natasha Lloyd, and she’s an actress who was hired by the website’s founder to help drum up publicity.

Yep — the whole thing was a hoax. The folks at Today.com were the ones to figure it out:

When TODAY Moms first reported on the contest, some readers were incredulous; they couldn’t believe a real mom would do such a thing. Now it appears they were right.

Except…they weren’t. Several “real moms” (and dads) have indeed done such a thing. Here are all the for-profit baby names (and attempts) I know of:

*I never blogged about these three, so here are the details:

  • In 2001, Jason Black and Frances Schroeder of New York tried to auction off the name of the their third child (first son) via Yahoo and eBay. They were aiming for a corporate sponsor, so the bidding started at $500,000. No one bid. They ended up naming the baby Zane Black.
  • In 2002, Bob and Tracy Armstrong from Florida tried to auction off the name of their baby (gender unknown) via eBay. After eBay pulled the auction for the third time, they decided not to try again.
  • In 2002, Heather and Steve Johnston of Washington state tried to auction off the name of their baby boy via eBay. The bidding started at $250,000. I found no follow-up stories, so I imagine the auction was either pulled or unsuccessful.

Video games on one end, $15,000 on the other…such wildly different values placed on baby names. Kinda fascinating, isn’t it?

Sources: $5,000 online baby-name contest revealed as hoax, Mom crowdsources baby name for $5,000

Image: Adapted from $20 Federal Reserve Bank Note (1929) (public domain)

[Latest update: March 2022]

Baby name story: Pixy

Modern-day Pixy 103 logo

One of the local radio stations on Cape Cod (where I grew up) is a classic rock station called PIXY 103 (WPXC).

Back then, one of PIXY’s annual publicity stunts involved baby names. To the parents of the first baby born on the Cape every year, the station would offer a cash prize…but only if the parents agreed to name their baby Pixy first. If Pixy was used as the first name, the parents got $1,000. If it was a middle, they got $500.

For years I wondered if any of those “first babies” were ever named Pixy.

Last night, I finally looked it up. (Why? Because Appellation Mountain’s Pixie post gave me a nudge.)

Turns out the answer is yes, at least one baby was named Pixy for the radio station. On the first day of 1998, the Cape Cod Times reported:

Over the years, only one family agreed to use PIXY as a middle name and then donated the money to charity, said station owner Maureen Makkay.

I’m not sure if the publicity stunt goes on to this day. If it does, perhaps there’s more than one PIXY namesake out there.

If someone offered you $1,000 to name your baby Pixy, would you do it? (Would gender be a deciding factor?)

Source: Friss, Gwenn. “It’s a girl! Shaylyn first in 1998.” Cape Cod Times 1 Jan. 1998.