Alvin
Derived from the Old English name Ælfwine, meaning "elf friend".
Name Census estimates that about 78,823 living Americans carry the first name Alvin. It is a predominantly male name (99.3% of registrations). The average person named Alvin today is around 57 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Alvin births was 1927 (2,908 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Alvin. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Alvin with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Alvin is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 1,098 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
79K
~ 1 in 4,348 Americans
Peak year
1927
2,908 babies that year
Average age
57
years old
2024 SSA rank
#791
Tracked since 1880
Census
Alvin in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 72,972 people with the first name Alvin, which placed it at #701 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#701
National first-name rank
People counted
73K
72,972 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
24.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
42.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Alvin
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Alvin is White at 42.2%. The next largest groups are Black (34.4%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (12.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Alvin described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Alvin at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White42.2% · 30,811
- Black or African American34.4% · 25,072
- Asian and Pacific Islander12.1% · 8,865
- Hispanic or Latino7.6% · 5,521
- Two or more races2.2% · 1,639
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.5% · 1,064
Gender
Gender distribution for Alvin
Out of the 162,206 babies given the name Alvin since 1880, 99.3% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Alvin as a male name
- Ranked #791 in 2024
- 316 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1927 (2,883 births)
Alvin as a female name
- Ranked #10,620 in 1994
- 7 female births in 1994
- Peak: 1929 (30 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Alvin appears almost entirely male. Of the 72,962 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Alvin: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Alvin from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 27,090 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Alvin by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Alvin during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Alvins live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. Texas, New York, California recorded the most babies named Alvin, while Vermont, New Hampshire, Nevada recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 2,992 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Alvin
The name Alvin is derived from the Old English and Old Germanic names Aelfwine and Alvwin. These names are composed of the elements "alf" meaning "elf" and "wine" meaning "friend". The Old English and Old Germanic forms gradually evolved into the modern name Alvin over the centuries.
Alvin can be traced back to the early Middle Ages in parts of what is now England and Germany. It became a relatively common given name among Anglo-Saxons and Germanic peoples during this era. The name carried associations with mythological elves and sprites from Germanic folklore.
One of the earliest known records of the name Alvin appears in the Domesday Book, a comprehensive survey of England commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086. An entry lists an individual named "Aluuinus" as a landowner in Hertfordshire.
In the 12th century, a monk named Alwin authored the Vita Sancti Birini, an important early biography of Saint Birinus, an apostolic missionary who helped establish Christianity in Wessex. This Alwin has sometimes been confused with the chronicler Alwin of Tewkesbury from around the same time period.
The legendary English outlaw and folk hero Robin Hood had a son named Alwin in some medieval ballads and stories from the 13th and 14th centuries. In the 15th century, the name appeared as "Alwyne" in records associated with the English county of Somerset.
A prominent figure named Alvin Tortor served as the Mayor of London in 1349 during the outbreak of the Black Death pandemic in England. He played a key role in managing the city's response to the crisis.
In the 17th century, the Puritan minister Alvyn Talmadge was born in Suffolk, England in 1607. He later emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and became an influential figure among early settlers in New England.
People
Alvin + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Alvin as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Alvin: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Alvin?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 78,823 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Alvin going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 4,348 US residents.
Is Alvin a common name?
We classify Alvin as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 162,206 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Alvin most popular?
The single biggest year for Alvin was 1927, when 2,908 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Alvin is about 57 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Alvin in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 72,972 people with the name Alvin, or 24.16 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #701 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Alvin in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Alvin?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Alvin appears almost entirely male. Of the 72,962 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Alvin?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Alvin is White at 42.2%. The next largest groups are Black (34.4%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (12.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Alvin most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Alvin in the 2020 Census, accounting for 42.2% (30,811 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Alvin in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Alvin a male name?
Yes, 99.3% of people registered as Alvin in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Alvin still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Alvin in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Alvin can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people share the name Alvin?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.