Beverly

English

Etymology

Variant spelling of Beverley.

Proper noun

Beverly (countable and uncountable, plural Beverlys)

1. A surname.
2. A unisex given name transferred from the surname
   1. A female given name transferred from the surname. Popular in the 1930s to the 1950s in the U.S., partly because of its association with Beverly Hills (where the stars live).
      • 1904, George Barr McCutcheon, Beverly of Graustark, Kissinger Publishing, published 2005, →ISBN, page 6:

        Everybody in Washington's social and diplomatic circles admired the beautiful Beverly Calhoun.

      • 1989, Faith Sullivan, The Cape Ann, Penguin, →ISBN, page 2:

        Mama had chosen the name Lark. - - - Papa had wanted to call me Beverly Mary; Mary after the Blessed Virgin. Mama said she wouldn't hang a name like Beverly Mary on a pet skunk.

   2. A male given name transferred from the surname.
      • 1984, Louise Erdrich, Love medicine, Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 74:

        Having a name some people thought of as feminine had turned Beverly Lamartine to building up his muscles in his youth, and they still bulged, hard as ingots in some places, now lost in others.

3. (uncountable) A common place name from the surname or the given name:
   1. An unincorporated community in Elbert County, Georgia, United States.
   2. A city in Lincoln County, Kansas, United States.
   3. An unincorporated community in Bell County, Kentucky, United States.
   4. A city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States.
   5. An unincorporated community in Platte County, Missouri, United States.
   6. An unincorporated community in Hitchcock County, Nebraska, United States.
   7. A city in Burlington County, New Jersey, United States.
   8. A village in Washington County, Ohio, United States.
   9. An unincorporated community in Grant County, Washington, United States.
   10. A town in Randolph County, West Virginia, United States.

Statistics

• According to the 2010 United States Census, Beverly is the 2992^nd most common surname in the United States, belonging to 11978 individuals. Beverly is most common among White (49.63%) and Black/African American (44.57%) individuals.

Further reading

• Hanks, Patrick, editor (2003), “Beverly”, in Dictionary of American Family Names, volume 1, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 152.