Berry
A sweet fruit, also a color name of reddish-purple.
Name Census estimates that about 3,157 living Americans carry the first name Berry. It is a predominantly male name (93.9% of registrations). The average person named Berry today is around 58 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Berry births was 1963 (108 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Berry. 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 Berry with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
3.2K
~ 1 in 108,570 Americans
Peak year
1963
108 babies that year
Average age
58
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,804
Tracked since 1880
Census
Berry in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 3,846 people with the first name Berry, which placed it at #4,725 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
#4,725
National first-name rank
People counted
3.8K
3,846 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
64.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Berry
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Berry is White at 64.6%. The next largest groups are Black (26.0%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (3.2%). 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 Berry 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 Berry at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White64.6% · 2,486
- Black or African American26.0% · 999
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.2% · 122
- Two or more races2.7% · 104
- Hispanic or Latino2.4% · 94
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.1% · 41
Gender
Gender distribution for Berry
Berry leans heavily male at 93.9% of total registrations, but 370 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Berry as a male name
- Ranked #7,804 in 2024
- 10 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1963 (108 births)
Berry as a female name
- Ranked #13,693 in 2024
- 6 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1925 (13 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Berry leans strongly male. 3,231 people counted with this name were male (83.9%), compared with 618 female bearers (16.1%).
Popularity
Berry: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Berry from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 854 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1950s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Berry 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 Berry during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Berrys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 20 states and territories. Georgia, Texas, North Carolina recorded the most babies named Berry, while West Virginia, Louisiana, Indiana recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 99 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Berry
The name Berry is an English given name derived from the Old English word "berige," which means "berry." It has been used as a first name since the Middle Ages and was likely originally bestowed upon children born during the berry-picking season or those with rosy, berry-like cheeks.
Berry can trace its origins back to the Anglo-Saxon period in Britain, around the 5th to 11th centuries. The name was primarily used in rural areas, where berries were an important part of the local diet and economy. It was a common practice at the time to name children after natural elements or occupations related to the land.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Berry appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, a comprehensive survey of landholdings in England commissioned by William the Conqueror. The entry mentions a man named Berry who held land in the county of Hertfordshire.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Berry. One of the earliest was Berry de Montmorency (c. 1195-1232), a French nobleman and crusader who participated in the Fifth Crusade to the Holy Land in the early 13th century. Another early bearer of the name was Berry de Garrive (c. 1280-1355), a French knight and military leader during the Hundred Years' War.
In the 16th century, Berry Pomeroy (c. 1500-1567) was an English landowner and Member of Parliament who played a role in the suppression of the Prayer Book Rebellion in 1549. A century later, Berry Brabazon (1640-1708) was an Anglo-Irish nobleman and politician who served as Lord Lieutenant of County Meath in Ireland.
More recently, Berry Gordy Jr. (born 1929) is an American record executive and entrepreneur who founded the Motown record label, which played a significant role in the development of soul and R&B music in the 1960s. His contributions to the music industry have been widely recognized, and he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.
People
Berry + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Berry as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with B
Other first names starting with B with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Berry: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Berry?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 3,157 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Berry 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 108,570 US residents.
Is Berry a common name?
We classify Berry as "Rare". It ranks above 95.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 6,103 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Berry most popular?
The single biggest year for Berry was 1963, when 108 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Berry is about 58 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Berry in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 3,846 people with the name Berry, or 1.27 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #4,725 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 Berry 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 Berry?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Berry leans strongly male. 3,231 people counted with this name were male (83.9%), compared with 618 female bearers (16.1%). 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 Berry?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Berry is White at 64.6%. The next largest groups are Black (26.0%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (3.2%). 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 Berry most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Berry in the 2020 Census, accounting for 64.6% (2,486 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 Berry in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Berry a male name?
Yes, 93.9% of people registered as Berry 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 Berry still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Berry 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 Berry 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 Berry?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.