Calvin
A masculine name derived from the French chauve meaning "bald".
Name Census estimates that about 152,192 living Americans carry the first name Calvin. It sits at #140 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (99.4% of registrations). The average person named Calvin today is around 42 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Calvin births was 1924 (4,941 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Calvin. 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 Calvin with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Calvin is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 1,216 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
152K
~ 1 in 2,252 Americans
Peak year
1924
4,941 babies that year
Average age
42
years old
2024 SSA rank
#140
Tracked since 1880
Census
Calvin in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 124,762 people with the first name Calvin, which placed it at #456 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
#456
National first-name rank
People counted
125K
124,762 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
41.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
50.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Calvin
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Calvin is White at 50.2%. The next largest groups are Black (33.4%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (6.8%). 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 Calvin 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 Calvin at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White50.2% · 62,616
- Black or African American33.4% · 41,720
- Asian and Pacific Islander6.8% · 8,513
- Two or more races4.3% · 5,371
- Hispanic or Latino4.1% · 5,080
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.2% · 1,462
Gender
Gender distribution for Calvin
Out of the 219,556 babies given the name Calvin since 1880, 99.4% 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.
Calvin as a male name
- Ranked #140 in 2024
- 2,568 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1924 (4,919 births)
Calvin as a female name
- Ranked #15,679 in 2024
- 5 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1958 (30 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Calvin appears almost entirely male. Of the 124,765 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Calvin: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Calvin 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 30,741 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1950s peak, Calvin remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Calvin 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 Calvin during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 1,236 | 0 | 1,236 |
| 1890s | 1,102 | 0 | 1,102 |
| 1900s | 1,291 | 0 | 1,291 |
| 1910s | 5,713 | 31 | 5,744 |
| 1920s | 24,785 | 163 | 24,948 |
| 1930s | 14,177 | 107 | 14,284 |
| 1940s | 19,241 | 97 | 19,338 |
| 1950s | 30,555 | 186 | 30,741 |
| 1960s | 21,888 | 214 | 22,102 |
| 1970s | 13,816 | 169 | 13,985 |
| 1980s | 15,785 | 154 | 15,939 |
| 1990s | 16,863 | 34 | 16,897 |
| 2000s | 16,111 | 17 | 16,128 |
| 2010s | 23,081 | 20 | 23,101 |
| 2020s | 12,696 | 24 | 12,720 |
Geography
Where Calvins live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, Georgia recorded the most babies named Calvin, while Wyoming, Rhode Island, Alaska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 4,174 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Calvin
The name Calvin has its origins in the Latin name Calvinus, which was a Roman family name derived from the Latin word calvus, meaning "bald" or "hairless." The name likely originated as a nickname or descriptive term for someone with little or no hair.
In the Early Middle Ages, the name was adopted as a given name by Christians, possibly in honor of Saint Calvinus, a 7th-century Christian martyr from Saxony. The name gained popularity during the Protestant Reformation, particularly among followers of the French theologian John Calvin (1509-1564), a key figure in the Protestant Reformation and the founder of Calvinism.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Calvin can be found in the 6th-century Latin text "Vitae Patrum" (Lives of the Fathers), which mentions a monk named Calvinus. In the 9th century, there was a Scottish bishop named Calvin who attended the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals named Calvin. One of the most famous was John Calvin, the French Protestant reformer and theologian who lived from 1509 to 1564. He was a prominent figure in the Protestant Reformation and his teachings, known as Calvinism, profoundly influenced Christian theology and the development of the Reformed and Presbyterian churches.
Another notable Calvin was Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), the 30th President of the United States. He served as president from 1923 to 1929 and was known for his conservative fiscal policies and his advocacy for civil rights.
Calvin Klein (born 1942) is an American fashion designer who founded the eponymous fashion house Calvin Klein Inc. He is renowned for his minimalist and modern designs, particularly in the areas of underwear, fragrances, and apparel.
In literature, Calvin is the name of the precocious and imaginative six-year-old protagonist in the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes" by Bill Watterson, which ran from 1985 to 1995. The character Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes became beloved cultural icons.
Calvin Harris (born 1984) is a Scottish DJ, record producer, and singer-songwriter. He has been one of the most successful and influential figures in the electronic dance music scene since the late 2000s, known for hits like "Feel So Close" and "Summer."
People
Calvin + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Calvin as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Calvin: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Calvin?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 152,192 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Calvin 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 2,252 US residents.
Is Calvin a common name?
We classify Calvin as "Common". It ranks above 99.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 219,556 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Calvin most popular?
The single biggest year for Calvin was 1924, when 4,941 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Calvin is about 42 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Calvin in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 124,762 people with the name Calvin, or 41.31 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #456 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 Calvin 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 Calvin?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Calvin appears almost entirely male. Of the 124,765 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 Calvin?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Calvin is White at 50.2%. The next largest groups are Black (33.4%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (6.8%). 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 Calvin most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Calvin in the 2020 Census, accounting for 50.2% (62,616 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 Calvin in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Calvin a male name?
Yes, 99.4% of people registered as Calvin 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 Calvin still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Calvin 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 Calvin 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 have the name Calvin?
For a quick modern take, check how many Americans are named Calvin on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.