Arturo
Bear-man in English, from the ancient Roman family name Artorius.
Name Census estimates that about 49,742 living Americans carry the first name Arturo. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Arturo today is around 37 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Arturo births was 2005 (1,093 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Arturo. 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 Arturo with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Arturo is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 209 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
50K
~ 1 in 6,891 Americans
Peak year
2005
1,093 babies that year
Average age
37
years old
2024 SSA rank
#577
Tracked since 1898
Census
Arturo in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 84,409 people with the first name Arturo, which placed it at #626 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
#626
National first-name rank
People counted
84K
84,409 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
27.9
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
94.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Arturo
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Arturo is Hispanic at 94.9%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (2.4%) and White (1.9%). 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 Arturo 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 Arturo at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino94.9% · 80,069
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.4% · 2,060
- White1.9% · 1,574
- Black or African American0.5% · 454
- Two or more races0.2% · 127
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.1% · 125
Gender
Gender distribution for Arturo
Out of the 56,842 babies given the name Arturo since 1880, 99.6% 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.
Arturo as a male name
- Ranked #577 in 2024
- 492 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2005 (1,093 births)
Arturo as a female name
- Ranked #13,696 in 2001
- 6 female births in 2001
- Peak: 1978 (14 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Arturo appears almost entirely male. Of the 84,408 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Arturo: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Arturo from the 1890s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 10,304 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Arturo 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 Arturo during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Arturos live
The SSA's state-level files cover 36 states and territories. Texas, California, Illinois recorded the most babies named Arturo, while Louisiana, Massachusetts, Kentucky recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,483 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Arturo
The name Arturo is of Germanic origin, derived from the ancient name Arthur, which itself is derived from the Celtic words "artos" meaning bear and "viros" meaning man, translating to "bear man." The name can be traced back to the 6th century, when it was popularized by the legendary King Arthur of Britain.
The Arthurian legends, which first appeared in the 12th century, were instrumental in spreading the name across Europe. In these tales, Arthur is depicted as the rightful king who leads the defense of Britain against Saxon invaders. The name gained further prominence with the publication of Sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur" in 1485, which helped to cement Arthur as a iconic figure in literature.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Arturo can be found in the writings of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, who mentions a character named Arturo in his epic poem "The Divine Comedy" (1320). The name also appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's "Historia Regum Britanniae" (1136), which chronicles the lives of the British kings, including Arthur.
Notable historical figures named Arturo include Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), the Italian conductor and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995) was an Italian classical pianist renowned for his interpretations of Romantic composers. Arturo Frondizi (1908-1995) was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 1958 to 1962.
In the literary world, Arturo Pérez-Reverte (born 1951) is a Spanish novelist and former war correspondent, best known for his historical fiction works such as "The Fencing Master" and "The Nautical Chart." Arturo Uslar Pietri (1906-2001) was a Venezuelan writer, intellectual, and politician, considered one of the most influential figures in Latin American literature of the 20th century.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Arturo
People
Arturo + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Arturo 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
Arturo: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Arturo?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 49,742 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Arturo 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 6,891 US residents.
Is Arturo a common name?
We classify Arturo as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 56,842 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Arturo most popular?
The single biggest year for Arturo was 2005, when 1,093 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Arturo is about 37 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Arturo in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 84,409 people with the name Arturo, or 27.95 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #626 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 Arturo 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 Arturo?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Arturo appears almost entirely male. Of the 84,408 people counted with this name, 99.8% 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 Arturo?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Arturo is Hispanic at 94.9%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (2.4%) and White (1.9%). 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 Arturo most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Arturo in the 2020 Census, accounting for 94.9% (80,069 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 Arturo in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Arturo a male name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Arturo 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 Arturo still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Arturo 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 Arturo 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 are named Arturo?
Want to know how many people share the name Arturo? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.