Apoorva
A feminine name of Sanskrit origin meaning unprecedented, unparalleled, or extraordinary.
Name Census estimates that about 148 living Americans carry the first name Apoorva. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Apoorva today is around 25 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Apoorva births was 2001 (19 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Apoorva. 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.
People living today
148
~ 1 in 2,315,908 Americans
Peak year
2001
19 babies that year
Average age
25
years old
2010 SSA rank
#17,290
Tracked since 1994
Census
Apoorva in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 898 people with the first name Apoorva, which placed it at #13,443 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
#13,443
National first-name rank
People counted
898
898 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Asian and Pacific Islander
96.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Apoorva
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Apoorva is Asian/Pacific Islander at 96.7%. The next largest groups are White (2.0%) and Black (0.6%). 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 Apoorva 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 Apoorva at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Asian and Pacific Islander96.7% · 868
- White2.0% · 18
- Black or African American0.6% · 5
- Hispanic or Latino0.4% · 4
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.2% · 2
- Two or more races0.1% · 1
Popularity
Apoorva: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Apoorva from the 1990s through to the 2010s, spanning 3 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 93 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Apoorva 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 Apoorva during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Apoorvas live
Origin
Meaning and history of Apoorva
The name Apoorva has its origins in the Sanskrit language, which is one of the oldest Indo-Aryan languages spoken in ancient India. Apoorva is a combination of the Sanskrit words "a" meaning "not" and "poorva" meaning "previous" or "former." The literal meaning of the name is "unprecedented" or "something never seen before."
Apoorva is a name that has been mentioned in various Hindu scriptures and ancient texts. One of the earliest references to the name can be found in the Mahabharata, the ancient Indian epic poem composed between the 8th and 9th centuries BCE. In the Mahabharata, Apoorva is mentioned as the name of a sage who imparted wisdom to the Pandava princes.
The name Apoorva gained popularity during the medieval period in India, particularly among the Hindu communities. One of the earliest recorded individuals with this name was Apoorva Deva, a Sanskrit scholar and poet who lived in the 12th century CE in the present-day state of Odisha, India. He was renowned for his work on Sanskrit grammar and poetics.
In the 16th century, Apoorva Datta was a prominent Bengali poet and writer who made significant contributions to the Vaishnava literature of medieval Bengal. His works, such as the "Apoorva Vaishnava Padavali," are considered literary gems of that era.
Another notable individual with the name Apoorva was Apoorva Krishna Deva, a Vedic scholar and philosopher who lived in the 18th century in present-day Uttar Pradesh, India. He wrote extensively on Vedanta philosophy and is credited with reviving the study of the Vedas in northern India.
In more recent times, Apoorva Mehta (1946-2019) was an Indian entrepreneur and business executive who co-founded Dharma Productions, one of the leading film production companies in Bollywood. He was known for producing several critically acclaimed and commercially successful films in the Indian cinema industry.
Throughout history, the name Apoorva has been associated with individuals who have made significant contributions to various fields, including literature, philosophy, and entrepreneurship. Its meaning of "unprecedented" and "something never seen before" reflects the unique and exceptional qualities that have been attributed to those who bear this name.
People
Apoorva + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Apoorva 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
Apoorva: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Apoorva?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 148 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Apoorva 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 2,315,908 US residents.
Is Apoorva a common name?
We classify Apoorva as "Very Rare". It ranks above 70.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 151 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Apoorva most popular?
The single biggest year for Apoorva was 2001, when 19 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Apoorva is about 25 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Apoorva in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 898 people with the name Apoorva, or 0.30 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #13,443 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 Apoorva 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 Apoorva?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Apoorva leans strongly female. 722 people counted with this name were female (80.7%), compared with 173 male bearers (19.3%). 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 Apoorva?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Apoorva is Asian/Pacific Islander at 96.7%. The next largest groups are White (2.0%) and Black (0.6%). 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 Apoorva most often in the Census?
Asian/Pacific Islander is the largest reported group for people named Apoorva in the 2020 Census, accounting for 96.7% (868 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 Apoorva in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Apoorva a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Apoorva in the SSA data are female. 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 Apoorva still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Apoorva 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 Apoorva 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 Apoorva?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.