Fitz
Son of a nobleman or member of the gentry.
Name Census estimates that about 640 living Americans carry the first name Fitz. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Fitz today is around 12 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Fitz births was 2020 (80 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Fitz. 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 Fitz with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
640
~ 1 in 535,554 Americans
Peak year
2020
80 babies that year
Average age
12
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,479
Tracked since 1914
Census
Fitz in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 742 people with the first name Fitz, which placed it at #15,477 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
#15,477
National first-name rank
People counted
742
742 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
45.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Fitz
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Fitz is White at 45.7%. The next largest groups are Black (43.5%) and Hispanic (5.8%). 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 Fitz 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 Fitz at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White45.7% · 339
- Black or African American43.5% · 323
- Hispanic or Latino5.8% · 43
- Two or more races3.0% · 22
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.0% · 15
Popularity
Fitz: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Fitz from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 10 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 303 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
Fitz 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 Fitz during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Fitz' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 11 states and territories. Texas, California, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Fitz, while Utah, Tennessee, Illinois recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 11 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Fitz
The name Fitz originates from the Norman French "fiz" or "fils," meaning "son." It first appeared in the 11th century as a prefix added to a father's name to indicate a person's paternal lineage. For example, Fitzwilliam means "son of William." This practice was common among the Norman aristocracy in England after the Norman Conquest of 1066.
Fitz became a popular surname in medieval England and was often used by illegitimate children of nobility to indicate their paternal heritage without explicitly naming their father. Many notable families adopted surnames beginning with Fitz, such as FitzGerald, FitzRoy, and FitzAlan.
One of the earliest recorded instances of Fitz as a given name dates back to the 12th century. Fitzherbert de Cheval, a Norman knight, was mentioned in the Pipe Rolls of Henry II in 1166. Another early example is Fitzpiers, the son of King John of England, born around 1198.
Throughout history, several notable individuals bore the name Fitz as their first name. One of the most famous was Fitzralph, an Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland from 1347 to 1360, who was known for his opposition to the mendicant orders of the Catholic Church.
Another prominent figure was Fitznigel, a 12th-century Anglo-Norman historian and royal treasurer under King Henry II. He is best known for his influential work, "Dialogus de Scaccario," which provided a detailed account of the English Exchequer's administrative practices.
In the 16th century, Fitzjames Stanford, an English Catholic priest and martyr, was executed in 1585 for his involvement in the Babington Plot against Queen Elizabeth I. He was later canonized by the Catholic Church.
Fitzwilliam Darcy, the male protagonist in Jane Austen's novel "Pride and Prejudice," published in 1813, is one of the most famous literary characters with the name Fitz.
Lastly, Fitzroy Somerset, a British naval officer and colonial administrator, served as the Governor of Cape Colony (now part of South Africa) from 1819 to 1828 and played a significant role in the development of the colony during that period.
People
Fitz + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Fitz 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
Fitz: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Fitz?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 640 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Fitz 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 535,554 US residents.
Is Fitz a common name?
We classify Fitz as "Very Rare". It ranks above 86.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 689 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Fitz most popular?
The single biggest year for Fitz was 2020, when 80 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Fitz is about 12 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Fitz in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 742 people with the name Fitz, or 0.25 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #15,477 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 Fitz 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 Fitz?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Fitz leans strongly male. 742 people counted with this name were male (98.1%), compared with 14 female bearers (1.9%). 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 Fitz?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Fitz is White at 45.7%. The next largest groups are Black (43.5%) and Hispanic (5.8%). 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 Fitz most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Fitz in the 2020 Census, accounting for 45.7% (339 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 Fitz in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Fitz a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Fitz 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 Fitz still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Fitz 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 Fitz 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 Fitz?
Want to know how many people have the name Fitz? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.