Collins
Anglicized form of the Irish surname Ó Coileáin meaning "descendant of Coileán".
Name Census estimates that about 11,821 living Americans carry the first name Collins. It sits at #257 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 72.3% of registrations being female. The average person named Collins today is around 13 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Collins births was 2023 (1,333 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Collins. 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 Collins with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Collins started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
- • Collins is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 13 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
12K
~ 1 in 28,995 Americans
Peak year
2023
1,333 babies that year
Average age
13
years old
2024 SSA rank
#257
Tracked since 1881
Census
Collins in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 6,870 people with the first name Collins, which placed it at #3,171 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
#3,171
National first-name rank
People counted
6.9K
6,870 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
2.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
66.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Collins
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Collins is White at 66.6%. The next largest groups are Black (24.2%) and Two or More Races (3.6%). 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 Collins 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 Collins at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White66.6% · 4,574
- Black or African American24.2% · 1,664
- Two or more races3.6% · 250
- Hispanic or Latino3.2% · 217
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.5% · 100
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 65
Gender
Gender distribution for Collins
Collins is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 13,128 total registrations, 3,638 (27.7%) were male and 9,490 (72.3%) were female.
Collins as a male name
- Ranked #2,524 in 2024
- 53 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2023 (62 births)
Collins as a female name
- Ranked #257 in 2024
- 1,237 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2023 (1,271 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Collins on both sides of the split. Of the 6,872 people counted with this name, 2,892 were male (42.1%) and 3,980 were female (57.9%).
Popularity
Collins: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Collins from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 5,855 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Collins 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 Collins during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Collins' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 42 states and territories. Texas, Georgia, Alabama recorded the most babies named Collins, while Nevada, New Hampshire, West Virginia recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 223 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Collins
The name Collins is an English given name derived from the Old French surname Colins. The surname itself originates from the Latin name Colinus, which is a diminutive form of the Roman family name Colo. Colo is thought to have referred to a person who cultivated the land or worked as a farmer.
The name Colinus first appeared in written records during the Middle Ages. One of the earliest known bearers of the name was Colinus de Parisius, a scholar and theologian who lived in Paris in the 12th century. Another early bearer was Colinus de Rameville, a Norman knight mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086.
In England, the name Collins gained popularity as a given name during the 16th and 17th centuries. One of the earliest recorded instances is that of Collins Gough, an English lawyer and politician who lived from 1577 to 1642. Another notable bearer was Collins Calmady, an English soldier and landowner who fought in the English Civil War (1642-1651).
During the 18th and 19th centuries, several notable individuals bore the name Collins. These include Collins King (1750-1818), an English architect who designed the Theatre Royal in Birmingham, and Collins Trelawny (1786-1850), an English naval officer and politician.
In the 20th century, some famous bearers of the name Collins include Collins Lewis (1900-1982), an American jazz drummer and bandleader, and Collins Mbugua (1934-2009), a Kenyan artist and sculptor.
Other historical figures with the given name Collins include Collins Wilkie (1824-1889), an English novelist and playwright best known for his novels "The Woman in White" and "The Moonstone"; Collins Carpenter (1836-1921), an American politician who served as the 19th Governor of Iowa; and Collins Bartholomew (1891-1953), a Scottish cartographer and founder of the map publishing firm John Bartholomew and Son.
People
Collins + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Collins 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
Collins: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Collins?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 11,821 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Collins 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 28,995 US residents.
Is Collins a common name?
We classify Collins as "Uncommon". It ranks above 97.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 13,128 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Collins most popular?
The single biggest year for Collins was 2023, when 1,333 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Collins is about 13 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Collins in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 6,870 people with the name Collins, or 2.27 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #3,171 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 Collins 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 Collins?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Collins on both sides of the split. Of the 6,872 people counted with this name, 2,892 were male (42.1%) and 3,980 were female (57.9%). 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 Collins?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Collins is White at 66.6%. The next largest groups are Black (24.2%) and Two or More Races (3.6%). 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 Collins most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Collins in the 2020 Census, accounting for 66.6% (4,574 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 Collins in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Collins a female name?
Yes, 72.3% of people registered as Collins 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 Collins still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Collins 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 Collins 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 Americans are named Collins?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.