Hugh
A masculine name of Germanic origin meaning "heart, mind, spirit".
Name Census estimates that about 34,527 living Americans carry the first name Hugh. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Hugh today is around 58 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Hugh births was 1916 (1,626 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Hugh. 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 Hugh with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Hugh is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 354 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
35K
~ 1 in 9,927 Americans
Peak year
1916
1,626 babies that year
Average age
58
years old
2024 SSA rank
#763
Tracked since 1880
Census
Hugh in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 37,245 people with the first name Hugh, which placed it at #1,110 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
#1,110
National first-name rank
People counted
37K
37,245 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
12.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
82.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Hugh
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Hugh is White at 82.7%. The next largest groups are Black (9.9%) and Two or More Races (2.7%). 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 Hugh 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 Hugh at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White82.7% · 30,812
- Black or African American9.9% · 3,686
- Two or more races2.7% · 1,014
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.1% · 787
- Hispanic or Latino2.0% · 750
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 196
Gender
Gender distribution for Hugh
Out of the 83,820 babies given the name Hugh since 1880, 99.6% 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.
Hugh as a male name
- Ranked #763 in 2024
- 332 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1916 (1,619 births)
Hugh as a female name
- Ranked #11,268 in 1985
- 5 female births in 1985
- Peak: 1920 (18 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Hugh appears almost entirely male. Of the 37,239 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Hugh: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Hugh 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 14,249 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
Hugh 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 Hugh during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Hughs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, Georgia, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Hugh, while Alaska, Nevada, Delaware recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,411 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Hugh
The name Hugh has its origins in the Germanic language, derived from the Old Frankish word "hug", meaning "heart", "mind", or "spirit". It has also been associated with the Old Norse word "hughr", which means "mind" or "soul". The name is believed to have first emerged around the 7th or 8th century in regions where Germanic languages were spoken, such as parts of modern-day France, Germany, and the Low Countries.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name can be found in the 9th century, in reference to Hugh the Abbot, a Benedictine monk who lived from around 810 to 844 AD. He is known for establishing the Monastery of St. Germain d'Auxerre in France and is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church.
In the 10th century, the name gained prominence with Hugh Capet, the first monarch of the Capetian dynasty and the founder of the modern French monarchy. Born around 941 AD, Hugh Capet was elected as the King of France in 987 and ruled until his death in 996.
Another notable figure from history bearing the name Hugh was Hugh of Lincoln, an English nobleman and one of the wealthiest men in England during the 12th century. He was also known for his involvement in the Crusades and his support for the monastic orders.
In the 13th century, Hugh of Saint-Cher, a Dominican friar and scholar, made significant contributions to the study of the Bible and biblical exegesis. He is credited with compiling the first known concordance of the Bible, a tool that greatly facilitated the study of scripture.
The name remained popular throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance period, with figures such as Hugh Latimer, an English Renaissance scholar and one of the leaders of the English Reformation in the 16th century. Latimer was born around 1485 and was eventually martyred for his Protestant beliefs in 1555.
Other notable figures with the name Hugh include Hugh Lofting, the British author and creator of the beloved children's book character Doctor Dolittle, born in 1886, and Hugh Jackman, the Australian actor known for his portrayal of Wolverine in the X-Men film series, born in 1968.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Hugh
People
Hugh + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Hugh as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with H
Other first names starting with H with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Hugh: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Hugh?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 34,527 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Hugh 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 9,927 US residents.
Is Hugh a common name?
We classify Hugh as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 83,820 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Hugh most popular?
The single biggest year for Hugh was 1916, when 1,626 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Hugh is about 58 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Hugh in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 37,245 people with the name Hugh, or 12.33 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,110 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 Hugh 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 Hugh?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Hugh appears almost entirely male. Of the 37,239 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 Hugh?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Hugh is White at 82.7%. The next largest groups are Black (9.9%) and Two or More Races (2.7%). 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 Hugh most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Hugh in the 2020 Census, accounting for 82.7% (30,812 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 Hugh in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Hugh a male name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Hugh 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 Hugh still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Hugh 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 Hugh 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 Americans are named Hugh?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.