Cypress
An ancient Greek name referring to a coniferous evergreen tree.
Name Census estimates that about 2,029 living Americans carry the first name Cypress. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 52.6% of registrations being male. The average person named Cypress today is around 11 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Cypress births was 2024 (204 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Cypress. 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.
Key insights
- • Cypress sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
- • Cypress is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 11 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
2.0K
~ 1 in 168,928 Americans
Peak year
2024
204 babies that year
Average age
11
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,416
Tracked since 1978
Census
Cypress in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,175 people with the first name Cypress, which placed it at #11,067 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
#11,067
National first-name rank
People counted
1.2K
1,175 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
62.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Cypress
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cypress is White at 62.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (16.3%) and Two or More Races (11.1%). 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 Cypress 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 Cypress at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White62.6% · 736
- Hispanic or Latino16.3% · 192
- Two or more races11.1% · 130
- Black or African American6.3% · 74
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.4% · 28
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.3% · 15
Gender
Gender distribution for Cypress
Cypress is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 2,048 total registrations, 1,078 (52.6%) were male and 970 (47.4%) were female.
Cypress as a male name
- Ranked #1,416 in 2024
- 130 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (130 births)
Cypress as a female name
- Ranked #2,439 in 2024
- 74 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (74 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Cypress on both sides of the split. Of the 1,179 people counted with this name, 548 were male (46.5%) and 631 were female (53.5%).
Popularity
Cypress: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Cypress from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 842 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
Cypress 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 Cypress during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Cypress' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 17 states and territories. California, Florida, Texas recorded the most babies named Cypress, while Ohio, Missouri, Colorado recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 36 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Cypress
The name Cypress has its origins in the ancient Greek language, derived from the word "kyparissos," which referred to the cypress tree. This evergreen coniferous tree held significant cultural and symbolic meaning in ancient Greece and the surrounding regions.
Cypress trees were often associated with mourning and death in Greek mythology. One notable legend involves the youth Kyparissos, who was transformed into a cypress tree after accidentally killing a sacred stag. This tale likely contributed to the symbolic association between the cypress and funerary rites in ancient Greek culture.
The name Cypress first appeared in written records during the classical period of ancient Greece, around the 5th century BCE. It was occasionally used as a personal name, although its usage was relatively uncommon compared to other Greek names of the time.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Cypress was Cypress of Cyrene, a Greek philosopher who lived in the 3rd century BCE. He was a follower of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, which emphasized the pursuit of pleasure as the highest good.
In the realm of literature, Cypress was the name of a character in the ancient Greek play "The Bacchae" by Euripides, written around 405 BCE. This character was a follower of the god Dionysus and played a role in the tragic events of the play.
During the Byzantine era, the name Cypress gained some popularity among Eastern Orthodox Christians, likely due to the symbolic association of the cypress tree with mourning and reverence. One notable figure from this period was Cypress of Nauplia (born around 1155 CE), a Greek Orthodox bishop and saint who is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
In the Renaissance period, the name Cypress was occasionally used by writers and artists, perhaps as a nod to its classical Greek origins. One example is the Italian painter Cypress Majano (1481-1551), who was known for his religious works and frescoes in churches throughout Italy.
Another notable figure with the name Cypress was the English poet and playwright Cypress Tourneur (1575-1626), who was part of the English Renaissance literary scene and wrote several influential works, including the revenge tragedy "The Atheist's Tragedy."
While the name Cypress has remained relatively uncommon throughout history, it has continued to be used sporadically across various cultures and time periods, likely inspired by its connection to the symbolic cypress tree and its roots in ancient Greek language and mythology.
People
Cypress + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Cypress 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
Cypress: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Cypress?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,029 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Cypress 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 168,928 US residents.
Is Cypress a common name?
We classify Cypress as "Rare". It ranks above 93.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,048 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Cypress most popular?
The single biggest year for Cypress was 2024, when 204 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Cypress is about 11 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Cypress in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,175 people with the name Cypress, or 0.39 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #11,067 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 Cypress 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 Cypress?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Cypress on both sides of the split. Of the 1,179 people counted with this name, 548 were male (46.5%) and 631 were female (53.5%). 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 Cypress?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cypress is White at 62.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (16.3%) and Two or More Races (11.1%). 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 Cypress most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Cypress in the 2020 Census, accounting for 62.6% (736 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 Cypress in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Cypress a male name?
Yes, 52.6% of people registered as Cypress 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 Cypress still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Cypress 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 Cypress 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 Cypress?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people have the name Cypress at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.