There are hundreds of millions of people living in the United States. Have you ever wondered how many of me are there or how rare is my name? Our tool utilizes aggregated, publicly available name frequency statistics from historical census surname lists and Social Security Administration baby name publications.
Enter it and find out how many of you there are.
Your input is never stored or saved. All calculations run instantly in your browser and disappear after results are shown.
Estimates are calculated using publicly available U.S. name frequency datasets including SSA statistics and census-derived records.
Our algorithm analyzes frequency distributions and probability models to estimate how many people share your name.
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Find out how common or rare your name is in the United States. Get the estimated number of people who share it, plus a full breakdown by gender, age group, state, and decade going back to 1880.
Names are everywhere, but how often do you actually stop to wonder how many other people in the country are walking around with the same one? If you have ever been in a room where two people turned around when someone called your name, or never met a single other person with yours in your entire life, you have felt both ends of the spectrum firsthand.
The How Many of Me tool pulls from over 140 years of Social Security Administration name records to estimate how many Americans currently share any given name. Type a name into the search box above and you get the full picture: total count, a rarity rating, gender split, which age groups carry it most, which states have the most of them, and how its popularity has shifted year by year since 1880.
People who land here are usually asking one of these questions:
You will find answers to all of those here. And if you want to understand the methodology behind the numbers, the methodology page explains exactly how the estimates are calculated.
A lot of name tools just give you a single number and leave you to figure out what it means. This one goes further. When you search a name, seven different sections load, each answering a different question about it.
Total people with your name
The headline figure: an estimated count of living Americans who currently carry this name, drawn from SSA birth records dating back to 1880 and adjusted for expected survival rates by age.
Name rarity score and probability
A "1 in X people" ratio that puts the count in real terms, plus a classification (Very Common, Common, Uncommon, Rare, or Very Rare) and a normalized score from 0 to 100. This is the section that answers the question "how rare is my name" directly.
Gender distribution
How many bearers of the name appear in SSA records as male versus female, shown as a percentage split and a donut chart. Some names are almost entirely one gender. Others are genuinely split. The tool predicts the dominant gender automatically based on the data.
Age group breakdown
Estimated living bearers split across six generations: Kids (born 2022 onwards), Young Adults (2002-2021), Adults (1982-2001), Middle-Aged (1962-1981), Seniors (1942-1961), and Elderly (before 1942). This shows you which generation actually owns a name today.
Popularity over time (year by year)
A line chart showing annual name usage from 1880 to now. The peak year is marked automatically. A trend indicator tells you whether usage is currently rising, declining, or holding steady compared to the previous decade.
Decade-by-decade breakdown
The same historical data grouped into 10-year periods, shown as a polar chart and a ranked table. You can immediately see which era produced the most bearers of a given name, whether that is the 1940s or the 2010s.
State-by-state distribution
All 50 states ranked by estimated bearer count. Useful for understanding why certain names concentrate in specific regions, whether from immigration patterns, religious traditions, or regional cultural trends.
All figures are statistical estimates, not exact government headcounts. The full explanation of the modeling approach is on our methodology page. Privacy note: the name you type is never stored or logged.
This is the question with the biggest gap between people's intuition and the actual data. Most people assume their name is either more unique or more common than it actually is.
The numbers tell a different story. James has been given to more Americans than any other name over the last 100 years, according to the SSA century dataset. But even a name like Jennifer, which peaked so strongly in the 1970s that it felt inescapable at the time, has slipped far enough out of fashion that relatively few babies get it today. The rarity score shifts constantly as generations age out and new ones arrive.
On the other side, names that people think are unique often turn out to have thousands of bearers. A name that feels rare in one city might be surprisingly common in another state. The name rarity statistics guide on our blog digs into this in more detail with specific examples.
Expectant parents
Checking whether a baby name they love will mean their child is one of thirty in their class, or the only one in the school.
Genealogists
Estimating how many potential relatives share a surname to decide where to focus research. Read more in our guide to why names matter.
Writers and game designers
Finding names that feel authentic to a specific era. A character born in 1952 named Kevin reads very differently than one named Ezra. Our common American names guide helps with this.
Curious people
Sometimes the question is simply personal. How many of me are there? How many people in the US have my exact name? This tool answers it in seconds.
Baby naming trends are one of the most reliable cultural records we have. They capture things that are hard to measure any other way: what people were watching, who they admired, what they feared, and what they hoped for.
The SSA records show Arya jumping sharply in the years after Game of Thrones aired. Khaleesi appeared in the data where it had never existed before. The Hunger Games produced a measurable increase in Katniss. These spikes are brief and sharp, usually peaking within a year or two of the source material and then fading. Our blog post on how cultural moments affect name popularity covers this in depth.
Names that feel dated at 40 years of age start feeling fresh and distinctive again at 80. Clara, Ezra, Walter, and Theodore all dropped off sharply after their peak decades, then quietly came back as parents started gravitating toward names that felt vintage rather than old. The popularity timeline in the tool shows these cycles clearly.
Spanish names became far more common in US records from the 1970s onward, tracking closely with immigration and birth rate data. Names from South Asian, East Asian, and African origins have risen steadily since the 1990s. The state distribution section shows how these patterns cluster geographically in ways that match actual demographic data. See our article on gender-neutral names for another angle on how naming evolves.
Research in social psychology documents what is sometimes called the "name-letter effect": people feel a mild but real positive response toward others who share their name. A common name increases the odds of that small social bond. A rare name trades it for memorability and distinctiveness. Neither outcome is better, but understanding the numbers lets you know which trade-off you are actually making.
The main dataset is the SSA National Baby Names dataset, which records how many times each name was given to newborns in the United States each year going back to 1880. Names given to fewer than five babies in a given year are excluded from the SSA's published records for privacy reasons. That exclusion is also why very rare names sometimes return zero or near-zero results here: the data simply does not exist in the public record.
From that raw birth data, the tool applies age-adjusted survival modeling to estimate how many people with a given name are likely still living today. A name given to 50,000 babies in 1920 contributes far fewer living bearers than the same count from 1995. The 1920 cohort is largely gone, and the model accounts for that.
Surname data draws on a different source: US Census Bureau genealogy data, which tracks the frequency of surnames across the population separately from the SSA birth name records.
Full methodology details are on the methodology page. Questions or feedback can be sent via the contact page.
Type any name into the search box above
First names, last names, and many name variants are supported. You do not need to create an account or enter any personal information.
Click "Check Uniqueness"
Results load within a few seconds and the page scrolls automatically to the report.
Scroll through the seven result sections
Each section answers a different question: total count and rarity, gender, age groups, yearly trend, decade breakdown, and state ranking.
Click similar names at the bottom to compare
The Similar Names section shows phonetically related names you can click to load stats instantly, without typing a new search.
Share your results
The Share button copies a direct link to your specific name's results page, which you can send to others or post to social media.
Our girl names directory organizes female given names alphabetically by starting letter. Each letter page shows bearer counts, popularity stats, and links to the full stats page for every individual name. It is a useful way to browse rather than search, especially when you are comparing options or researching a range of names at once.
Each letter page includes bearer counts, popularity trends, and links to individual name stats pages.
Based on SSA data covering the last 100 years, these are the most frequently given names in the country. The peak decade column shows when annual usage was highest. Click any name to load its full statistics.
| Rank | Name | Gender | Peak Decade |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | James | Male | 1940s |
| 2 | Mary | Female | 1920s to 1950s |
| 3 | Robert | Male | 1940s to 1960s |
| 4 | Patricia | Female | 1940s to 1960s |
| 5 | John | Male | 1920s to 1950s |
| 6 | Jennifer | Female | 1970s to 1980s |
| 7 | Michael | Male | 1960s to 1980s |
| 8 | Linda | Female | 1940s to 1960s |
| 9 | William | Male | 1910s to 1940s |
| 10 | Elizabeth | Female | Consistently popular |
| 11 | David | Male | 1950s to 1970s |
| 12 | Barbara | Female | 1930s to 1950s |
| 13 | Richard | Male | 1940s to 1960s |
| 14 | Susan | Female | 1940s to 1960s |
| 15 | Joseph | Male | 1910s to 1940s |
| 16 | Jessica | Female | 1980s to 1990s |
| 17 | Charles | Male | 1910s to 1940s |
| 18 | Karen | Female | 1950s to 1970s |
| 19 | Christopher | Male | 1970s to 1990s |
| 20 | Nancy | Female | 1940s to 1960s |
| 21 | Daniel | Male | 1970s to 1990s |
| 22 | Lisa | Female | 1960s to 1970s |
| 23 | Matthew | Male | 1980s to 1990s |
| 24 | Betty | Female | 1920s to 1940s |
| 25 | Anthony | Male | 1970s to 1990s |
| 26 | Margaret | Female | 1910s to 1940s |
| 27 | Mark | Male | 1960s to 1980s |
| 28 | Sandra | Female | 1940s to 1960s |
| 29 | Donald | Male | 1930s to 1950s |
| 30 | Ashley | Female | 1980s to 1990s |
Source: SSA Top Names Over the Last 100 Years. For a deeper look at these names and their origins, see our top 50 American names guide.
The names dominating current birth records and the names that have nearly disappeared from use tell very different stories. Both are worth searching. If you want to understand baby name trends in more depth, our 2025 baby name trends post covers the data in detail, and the rare last names guide profiles surnames on the verge of extinction.
Source: SSA Baby Names by Decade. Click any name to view its full statistics. Interested in choosing a name at either end of this spectrum? See our guide to choosing a unique baby name.
If the statistics sparked more questions, the How Many of Me blog covers the wider world of name research. Some recent posts worth reading:
How Rare Is My Name? Statistics for 2025
A deep dive into rarity classifications with data from the latest SSA records.
Rare Last Names You Have Probably Never Heard Of
Surnames so uncommon they may have fewer than 100 living bearers in the United States.
The Karen Effect: How Memes Change Name Popularity
What happens to a name's popularity when it becomes a cultural punchline?
Resume Name Bias and Hiring
Research on how the name at the top of a resume can affect callback rates.
Gender-Neutral Names: Trends and Data
Which names are genuinely split between male and female, and how that has shifted over decades.
50 Celebrity Baby Names of 2025
Which names are getting the celebrity bump this year and which ones are likely to follow.
Type your name in the search box above and click Check Uniqueness. The tool returns an estimated count of living Americans who share it, derived from SSA birth records going back to 1880 and adjusted using age-survival modeling. Results load in a few seconds and require no sign-up.
The tool is focused on US data. For global estimates, Forebears.io compiles surname frequency from dozens of countries, and national statistics offices in countries like the UK, Canada, and Australia publish their own given name datasets. Keep in mind that spelling variations across languages can significantly affect worldwide counts.
The tool calculates a "1 in X people" probability and classifies the name as Very Common, Common, Uncommon, Rare, or Very Rare based on its estimated count against the total US population. It also shows a 0-to-100 popularity score. Our blog post on name rarity statistics explains what each tier actually means in practice.
Yes. The tool accepts both given names and surnames. Surname data comes from US Census Bureau genealogy data rather than SSA records, so it draws on a different underlying dataset. Enter a last name the same way you would a first name and the tool handles the rest.
All figures are statistical estimates, not exact government headcounts. No publicly available US database tracks every living person by name in real time. For common names the model is quite reliable. For rare names with sparse birth records the margin of error is wider. The complete explanation is on the methodology page.
The SSA excludes names given to fewer than five people per year from its public dataset, for privacy reasons. If your name returns zero, it is either genuinely very rare, a recent coinage, a non-English name with limited US registration, or an alternate spelling of a more common name. Try searching the most common spelling variant to see if results appear.
Yes. Names you type are processed in real time and are never stored, logged, or tracked. No account or personal information is required to use the tool. The full privacy policy is available on the site.
Yes. The Popularity Over Time section shows annual usage from 1880 to the present. The Decade Breakdown section groups that data into 10-year periods and ranks each decade. The peak year is highlighted automatically and a trend indicator shows whether usage is currently rising, stable, or declining compared to the prior decade.
There is no definitive count. In the US alone the SSA has recorded over 100,000 distinct given names across its history, and new ones appear every year. Globally the number runs into the millions when you account for all languages, cultures, and spelling variations. The SSA publishes its complete name list at ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html for those who want to explore the full dataset.
Yes, completely free with no registration required. Just type a name and search. If you have questions or run into any issues, the contact page is the best way to reach us.