Fintan
Fair-minded or white-haired protector of Irish origin.
Name Census estimates that about 415 living Americans carry the first name Fintan. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Fintan today is around 13 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Fintan births was 2010 (27 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Fintan. 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 Fintan with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
415
~ 1 in 825,914 Americans
Peak year
2010
27 babies that year
Average age
13
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,378
Tracked since 1998
Census
Fintan in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 431 people with the first name Fintan, which placed it at #22,918 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
#22,918
National first-name rank
People counted
431
431 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
90.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Fintan
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Fintan is White at 90.3%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (4.9%) and Hispanic (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 Fintan 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 Fintan at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White90.3% · 389
- Two or more races4.9% · 21
- Hispanic or Latino3.2% · 14
- Black or African American1.2% · 5
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 2
Popularity
Fintan: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Fintan from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 204 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Fintan remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Fintan 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 Fintan during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Fintans live
The SSA's state-level files cover 3 states and territories. New York, Illinois, Virginia recorded the most babies named Fintan, while Virginia, Illinois, New York recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 6 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Fintan
The name Fintan is an Irish masculine given name that has its origins in the ancient Celtic languages. It is derived from the Old Irish word "findtan", which means "fair" or "white fire". This suggests that the name may have originally been associated with someone who had a bright or radiant appearance.
The name has been used in Ireland since ancient times, and it is believed to have been particularly popular among the Gaelic-speaking peoples of the island. One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Fintan is found in the Irish mythological tradition, where it is mentioned in the Fenian Cycle of stories and legends.
Fintan mac Bóchra is a legendary figure in Irish mythology who is said to have lived for several centuries and witnessed many important events in Irish history. According to the myths, Fintan was one of the few survivors of the great flood that inundated the world, and he lived to tell the tale of Ireland's past to the great Irish historian and storyteller, Fintan Fíneces.
In the early Christian era, the name Fintan was borne by several notable Irish saints and scholars. Saint Fintan of Clonenagh (c. 524 - 594) was an Irish abbot and founder of the monastery of Clonenagh in County Laois. Saint Fintan of Rheinau (c. 795 - 878) was an Irish monk and missionary who traveled to Switzerland and established a monastery in Rheinau.
During the medieval period, the name Fintan continued to be popular in Ireland. Fintan O'Gorman (fl. 1150) was an Irish poet and historian who wrote extensively about the history and genealogy of the Irish people. Fintan O'Toole (c. 1170 - 1230) was an Irish clergyman who served as the Archbishop of Tuam in the early 13th century.
In more recent times, the name Fintan has been borne by several notable Irish figures, including Fintan O'Toole (born 1958), an Irish journalist and literary critic, and Fintan O'Leary (born 1971), an Irish hurler who played for the Cork senior hurling team.
People
Fintan + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Fintan 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
Fintan: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Fintan?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 415 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Fintan 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 825,914 US residents.
Is Fintan a common name?
We classify Fintan as "Very Rare". It ranks above 82.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 419 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Fintan most popular?
The single biggest year for Fintan was 2010, when 27 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Fintan 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 Fintan in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 431 people with the name Fintan, or 0.14 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #22,918 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 Fintan 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 Fintan?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Fintan appears almost entirely male. Of the 429 people counted with this name, 100.0% 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 Fintan?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Fintan is White at 90.3%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (4.9%) and Hispanic (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 Fintan most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Fintan in the 2020 Census, accounting for 90.3% (389 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 Fintan in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Fintan a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Fintan 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 Fintan still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Fintan 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 Fintan 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 Fintan?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.