George
A masculine name of Greek origin meaning "earth-worker" or "farmer".
Name Census estimates that about 604,749 living Americans carry the first name George. It sits at #124 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (99.3% of registrations). The average person named George today is around 61 years old, and the year with the single highest number of George births was 1921 (27,682 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for George. 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 George with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although George is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 9,957 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
605K
~ 1 in 567 Americans
Peak year
1921
27,682 babies that year
Average age
61
years old
2024 SSA rank
#124
Tracked since 1880
Census
George in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 631,917 people with the first name George, which placed it at #64 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
#64
National first-name rank
People counted
632K
631,917 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
209.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
73.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for George
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named George is White at 73.0%. The next largest groups are Black (11.2%) and Hispanic (10.3%). 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 George 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 George at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White73.0% · 461,340
- Black or African American11.2% · 70,484
- Hispanic or Latino10.3% · 64,910
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.7% · 16,756
- Two or more races2.3% · 14,489
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 3,938
Gender
Gender distribution for George
Out of the 1,494,369 babies given the name George since 1880, 99.3% 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.
George as a male name
- Ranked #124 in 2024
- 2,890 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1921 (27,476 births)
George as a female name
- Ranked #14,009 in 2024
- 6 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1927 (248 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, George appears almost entirely male. Of the 631,924 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
George: popularity over time
The SSA tracks George from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 264,006 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
George 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 George during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 47,651 | 329 | 47,980 |
| 1890s | 43,358 | 345 | 43,703 |
| 1900s | 43,589 | 335 | 43,924 |
| 1910s | 176,609 | 1,096 | 177,705 |
| 1920s | 261,946 | 2,060 | 264,006 |
| 1930s | 192,290 | 1,602 | 193,892 |
| 1940s | 209,005 | 1,276 | 210,281 |
| 1950s | 181,029 | 1,023 | 182,052 |
| 1960s | 113,018 | 749 | 113,767 |
| 1970s | 64,762 | 510 | 65,272 |
| 1980s | 45,715 | 369 | 46,084 |
| 1990s | 35,246 | 136 | 35,382 |
| 2000s | 28,004 | 74 | 28,078 |
| 2010s | 28,403 | 33 | 28,436 |
| 2020s | 13,787 | 20 | 13,807 |
Geography
Where Georges live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, Pennsylvania, California recorded the most babies named George, while Alaska, Nevada, Wyoming recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 26,560 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of George
The name George originates from the Greek word "georgos" which means farmer or earth-worker. It has been a popular name in many cultures for centuries.
The name first gained widespread use during the 4th century AD when it was borne by several early Christian saints and martyrs. The most famous of these was St. George, a Roman soldier who was tortured and executed for refusing to renounce his Christian faith. His legendary struggle against evil became deeply embedded in Christian folklore and hagiography.
In the Middle Ages, the name George became associated with ideals of chivalry, courage, and military prowess. It was a favored name among European nobility and royalty, including the famous St. George, the patron saint of England from the 12th century onwards.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name George dates back to the 6th century Byzantine emperor Georgios Maniakes. Other notable historical figures with this name include George I (1660-1727), the first Hanoverian king of Great Britain, and George Washington (1732-1799), the first president of the United States.
The name George has been borne by many other influential people throughout history, such as the composers George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and George Gershwin (1898-1937), the writers George Orwell (1903-1950) and George Eliot (1819-1880, whose real name was Mary Ann Evans), and the physicists George Gamow (1904-1968) and George Smoot (born 1945), who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006.
Other famous Georges include the British explorer George Vancouver (1757-1798), after whom the Canadian city is named, the Irish satirist George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), and the American jazz musician George Benson (born 1943).
Notable bearers
Famous people named George
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George Abbott
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George Armitage
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George Atkinson
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George Baer
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George Best
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George Blanda
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George Brent
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George Brett
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George Burns
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George Bush
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George Butler
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George Butterfield
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George Carver
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George Clooney
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George Dunning
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George Eads
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George Eastman
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George Foreman
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George Foster
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George Gallo
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George Gervin
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George Hamilton
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George Handel
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George Harrison
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George Hayes
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George Hickenlooper
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George Hill
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George Huang
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George Kennedy
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George Lazenby
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George Lucas
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George Marshall
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George Mcfarland
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George Melford
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George Michael
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George Miller
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George Nierenberg
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George Obrien
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George Peppard
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George Pollock
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George Radanovich
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George Reeves
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George Rogers
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George Romero
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George Sanders
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George Scott
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George Seaton
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George Segal
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George Seitz
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George Sherman
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George Sidney
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George Stevens
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George Strait
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George Takei
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George Tillman
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George Ungar
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George Waggner
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George Washington
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George Wendt
People
George + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with George as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with G
Other first names starting with G with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
George: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named George?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 604,749 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for George 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 567 US residents.
Is George a common name?
We classify George as "Very Common". It ranks above 99.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,494,369 babies have been registered with this name.
When was George most popular?
The single biggest year for George was 1921, when 27,682 babies received the name. The fact that the average living George is about 61 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was George in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 631,917 people with the name George, or 209.22 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #64 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 George 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 George?
In the 2020 Census sex table, George appears almost entirely male. Of the 631,924 people counted with this name, 99.8% 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 George?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named George is White at 73.0%. The next largest groups are Black (11.2%) and Hispanic (10.3%). 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 George most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named George in the 2020 Census, accounting for 73.0% (461,340 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 George in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is George a male name?
Yes, 99.3% of people registered as George 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 George still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded George 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 George 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 George?
Find out how many Americans are named George on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.