Isidor
Greek masculine name meaning "gift of the goddess Isis".
Name Census estimates that about 73 living Americans carry the first name Isidor. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Isidor today is around 52 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Isidor births was 1914 (24 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Isidor. 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.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Isidor. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
73
~ 1 in 4,695,265 Americans
Peak year
1914
24 babies that year
Average age
52
years old
2024 SSA rank
#9,316
Tracked since 1883
Census
Isidor in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 251 people with the first name Isidor, which placed it at #33,109 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
#33,109
National first-name rank
People counted
251
251 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
49.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Isidor
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Isidor is White at 49.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (35.1%) and Black (10.4%). 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 Isidor 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 Isidor at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White49.0% · 123
- Hispanic or Latino35.1% · 88
- Black or African American10.4% · 26
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.8% · 7
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.6% · 4
- Two or more races1.2% · 3
Popularity
Isidor: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Isidor from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1910s, with 160 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1910s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Isidor 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 Isidor during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Isidors live
Origin
Meaning and history of Isidor
The name Isidor has its origins in the Greek language, derived from the words "isos" meaning "equal" and "doron" meaning "gift." It can be interpreted as "equal gift" or "gift of equality." The name gained prominence during the Byzantine era, which spanned from the 4th to the 15th centuries.
One of the earliest recorded references to the name Isidor can be found in the writings of Isidore of Seville, a scholar and prominent figure in the Catholic Church who lived from around 560 to 636 AD. He was known for his extensive literary works, including the encyclopedic "Etymologiae," which covered a wide range of subjects.
Isidor has been a popular name throughout history, with several notable individuals bearing this name. One example is Saint Isidore the Farmer, a Spanish farmer and laborer who lived in the 12th century and is venerated as the patron saint of farmers in the Catholic Church. Another notable figure is Isidore of Miletus, a renowned Greek mathematician and architect from the 6th century, known for his contributions to the construction of the Hagia Sophia basilica in Constantinople.
In the 17th century, Isidor Dioscoredes was a Greek monk and calligrapher who lived from 1629 to 1701. He is renowned for his exceptional calligraphic works and is considered one of the most skilled calligraphers in Greek history.
Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, a French naturalist and zoologist who lived from 1805 to 1861, made significant contributions to the field of teratology, the study of abnormal development in organisms.
More recently, Isidor Isaac Rabi was an American physicist and Nobel laureate, born in 1898 and lived until 1988. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944 for his groundbreaking work on magnetic resonance, which laid the foundation for the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology.
These are just a few examples of the many notable individuals throughout history who have borne the name Isidor, reflecting its rich cultural and historical significance across various disciplines and time periods.
People
Isidor + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Isidor as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with I
Other first names starting with I with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Isidor: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Isidor?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 73 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Isidor 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 4,695,265 US residents.
Is Isidor a common name?
We classify Isidor as "Very Rare". It ranks above 60% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 411 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Isidor most popular?
The single biggest year for Isidor was 1914, when 24 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Isidor is about 52 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Isidor in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 251 people with the name Isidor, or 0.08 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #33,109 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 Isidor 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 Isidor?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Isidor leans strongly male. 246 people counted with this name were male (98.8%), compared with 3 female bearers (1.2%). 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 Isidor?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Isidor is White at 49.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (35.1%) and Black (10.4%). 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 Isidor most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Isidor in the 2020 Census, accounting for 49.0% (123 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 Isidor in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Isidor a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Isidor 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 Isidor still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Isidor 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 Isidor 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 Isidor?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.