Felix
Derived from Latin meaning "lucky", "happy" or "successful".
Name Census estimates that about 59,706 living Americans carry the first name Felix. It sits at #177 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (99.2% of registrations). The average person named Felix today is around 32 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Felix births was 2024 (2,091 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Felix. 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 Felix with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Felix is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 662 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
60K
~ 1 in 5,741 Americans
Peak year
2024
2,091 babies that year
Average age
32
years old
2024 SSA rank
#177
Tracked since 1880
Census
Felix in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 80,554 people with the first name Felix, which placed it at #659 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
#659
National first-name rank
People counted
81K
80,554 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
26.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
67.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Felix
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Felix is Hispanic at 67.6%. The next largest groups are White (17.3%) and Black (7.4%). 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 Felix 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 Felix at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino67.6% · 54,448
- White17.3% · 13,939
- Black or African American7.4% · 5,924
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.4% · 4,382
- Two or more races1.8% · 1,438
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 423
Gender
Gender distribution for Felix
Out of the 82,090 babies given the name Felix since 1880, 99.2% 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.
Felix as a male name
- Ranked #177 in 2024
- 2,081 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (2,081 births)
Felix as a female name
- Ranked #9,752 in 2024
- 10 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2015 (17 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Felix leans strongly male. 79,502 people counted with this name were male (98.7%), compared with 1,052 female bearers (1.3%).
Popularity
Felix: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Felix from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 13,437 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Felix remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Felix 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 Felix during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Felix' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. Texas, California, New York recorded the most babies named Felix, while Delaware, Wyoming, Montana recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,455 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Felix
The name Felix has its origins in the Latin language, where it was derived from the Latin word "felix," meaning "happy" or "lucky." The name can be traced back to ancient Roman times, and it was a popular name among the Roman nobility and upper classes.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Felix can be found in the New Testament of the Bible, where a Roman governor named Felix appears in the Book of Acts. This Felix is mentioned as the governor of Judea from around 52-60 AD.
Another notable figure bearing the name Felix was Pope Felix I, who reigned as the Bishop of Rome from 269 to 274 AD. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church and is remembered for his efforts to maintain unity and discipline within the church during a period of persecution.
In the Middle Ages, the name Felix gained popularity across Europe, particularly in regions with strong ties to the Roman Empire or the Catholic Church. One notable bearer of the name during this period was Felix Fabri, a Dominican friar and renowned traveler who lived from 1441 to 1502. He is best known for his detailed accounts of his travels to the Holy Land and other parts of the Middle East.
During the Renaissance period, the name Felix was associated with humanist scholars and artists. One of the most famous figures of this time was Felix Mendelssohn, a German composer, pianist, and conductor who lived from 1809 to 1847. His works, including the "Scottish Symphony" and the "Violin Concerto in E minor," have become beloved classics in the Western classical music tradition.
Another notable Felix from the modern era was Felix Frankfurter, an Austrian-born American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 to 1962. He was a influential figure in shaping American jurisprudence and played a pivotal role in several landmark cases.
Other famous individuals named Felix throughout history include Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian skydiver known for his record-breaking freefall jump from the stratosphere in 2012; Felix Salten, an Austrian writer best known for his children's novel "Bambi"; and Felix Hernandez, a Venezuelan professional baseball pitcher who played for the Seattle Mariners in Major League Baseball.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Felix
People
Felix + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Felix as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with F
Other first names starting with F with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Felix: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Felix?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 59,706 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Felix 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 5,741 US residents.
Is Felix a common name?
We classify Felix as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 82,090 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Felix most popular?
The single biggest year for Felix was 2024, when 2,091 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Felix is about 32 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Felix in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 80,554 people with the name Felix, or 26.67 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #659 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 Felix 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 Felix?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Felix leans strongly male. 79,502 people counted with this name were male (98.7%), compared with 1,052 female bearers (1.3%). 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 Felix?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Felix is Hispanic at 67.6%. The next largest groups are White (17.3%) and Black (7.4%). 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 Felix most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Felix in the 2020 Census, accounting for 67.6% (54,448 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 Felix in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Felix a male name?
Yes, 99.2% of people registered as Felix 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 Felix still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Felix 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 Felix 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 Felix as a first name?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.