Cathy is the English diminutive of Catherine — from the Greek katharos (pure). A top-50 US baby name from 1949 to 1968, peaking at #28 in 1952. Cathy Guisewite (born 1950) — *American cartoonist; created the syndicated comic strip Cathy (1976-2010) — one of the few nationally syndicated comic strips drawn by a woman; ran in 1,400+ newspapers at its peak; the four "basic guilt groups" — food, work, mom, relationships — became cultural shorthand. Reuben Award (1992) — the first female cartoonist to win the National Cartoonists Society's top honor. Cathy Hughes (born 1947) — American businesswoman; founded Radio One in 1980; in 1999 became the first Black woman to chair a publicly traded American corporation when Radio One went public on NASDAQ. Cathy Freeman (born 1973) — Australian sprinter; 400m Olympic gold at Sydney 2000 — first Aboriginal Australian individual gold medalist; lit the Olympic cauldron. Cathy Rigby (born 1952) — American gymnast and Broadway Peter Pan. Cathy Bates is Kathy* (with K).
Featured throughout late-20th century American culture.
Cathy does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Cathy reduce to 3, The Communicator. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.