How Rare Is My Name?
Type any first or last name to see how rare it really is, its all-time U.S. rank, and how its popularity has moved since 1880. You get a shareable Name Rarity Card in one tap. Free, private, works on your phone.
Popular names people check
What this tells you
Type a name and you get one honest number: how many people share it. We read the U.S. Social Security Administration's public record of every name given to a baby from 1880 through 2024. That is 372,009,150 births across 104,819 different first names. Your rarity is simply how your name stacks up against all of them.
A name like James sits at the very top, so about 1 in 71 people share it. A name given to only a few hundred babies in 145 years lands in the millions, like 1 in 2 million. Both are fun to know, and both make a card worth sharing.
The Name Rarity Card
Every result builds a card you can save with one tap: the name, its rarity tier, the "1 in X" figure, its all-time U.S. rank, and a bar for every decade since 1880 so you can watch it rise and fall. Post it, text it, or drop it in a group chat and ask the obvious question back: how rare is yours?
How the tiers work
We sort every name into six tiers by how many people carry it.
| Tier | How many share the name |
|---|---|
| Very Common | more than 1 in 200 people |
| Common | about 1 in 200 to 1 in 2,000 |
| Uncommon | about 1 in 2,000 to 1 in 20,000 |
| Rare | about 1 in 20,000 to 1 in 200,000 |
| Very Rare | about 1 in 200,000 to 1 in 2 million |
| Ultra Rare | rarer than 1 in 2 million |
Most people land in Common or Very Common, which is its own kind of fun. If you score Rare or Ultra Rare, that badge is earned.
Where the numbers come from
First names use the SSA national baby-name data, which is public domain and covers 1880 to 2024. Last names use the U.S. Census Bureau 2010 surname file, which counts 266 million people across 162,253 surnames. The SSA only lists a name once at least 5 babies get it in a year, so genuinely tiny names show up as "too rare to count," which is a flex of its own.
One honest note: these are counts of recorded names, not a headcount of people alive today. Someone named in 1920 is counted the same as someone named last year. That makes the rarity ranking fair and stable, but it is a names figure, not a census of the living.
Everything runs in your browser. The name you type never leaves your device.
Frequently asked questions
- How is name rarity calculated?
- We take the total number of U.S. births on record (372,009,150 from 1880 to 2024) and divide by how many of those births got your name. That gives the "1 in X" figure. Your all-time rank is your name's position when every name is sorted from most to least common.
- Is this based on people alive today?
- No. It counts every recorded birth since 1880, so it includes people who have passed away. That keeps the ranking fair and stable over time, but it is a count of names given, not a headcount of the living population.
- Why can it not find my name?
- The Social Security Administration only publishes a name for a year once at least 5 babies receive it. Very rare names, unusual spellings, and most names from outside the U.S. never cross that line, so they do not appear. If yours is missing, it is genuinely rare. Double check the spelling too.
- What is the most common name of all time?
- James leads the all-time list, followed by John, Robert, Michael, William. These names have been given to millions of Americans across more than a century.
- Can I check a last name?
- Yes. Switch to the surname rarity checker, which uses the U.S. Census 2010 surname file. Smith is the most common American surname, shared by more than 2.4 million people.