Leonardo
A masculine given name of Italian origin meaning "brave lion."
Name Census estimates that about 89,466 living Americans carry the first name Leonardo. It sits at #84 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Leonardo today is around 17 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Leonardo births was 2019 (4,431 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Ayden (89,444).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Leonardo. 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 Leonardo with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Leonardo is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 141 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • Leonardo is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 17 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
89K
~ 1 in 3,831 Americans
Peak year
2019
4,431 babies that year
Average age
17
years old
2024 SSA rank
#84
Tracked since 1885
Census
Leonardo in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 82,532 people with the first name Leonardo, which placed it at #640 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
#640
National first-name rank
People counted
83K
82,532 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
27.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
80.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Leonardo
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Leonardo is Hispanic at 80.7%. The next largest groups are White (12.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (3.5%). 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 Leonardo 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 Leonardo at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino80.7% · 66,615
- White12.7% · 10,467
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.5% · 2,914
- Black or African American1.7% · 1,396
- Two or more races1.2% · 1,008
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.2% · 132
Gender
Gender distribution for Leonardo
Out of the 92,384 babies given the name Leonardo since 1880, 99.8% 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.
Leonardo as a male name
- Ranked #84 in 2024
- 3,951 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2019 (4,425 births)
Leonardo as a female name
- Ranked #14,571 in 2022
- 6 female births in 2022
- Peak: 1992 (12 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Leonardo appears almost entirely male. Of the 82,530 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Leonardo: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Leonardo from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 35,254 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Leonardo remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Leonardo 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 Leonardo during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Leonardos live
The SSA's state-level files cover 48 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Leonardo, while West Virginia, Maine, Wyoming recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,859 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Leonardo
The name Leonardo has its origins in the Italian language, derived from the Italian and Medieval Latin words "leon" meaning lion and "ardo" meaning bold or hardy. It emerged during the Middle Ages in Italy as a given name bearing the meaning "brave as a lion" or "lion-hearted".
The earliest known record of the name Leonardo dates back to the late 11th century, with mentions in Italian historical documents and records from various communes and cities. One of the earliest notable individuals bearing this name was Leonardo da Vinci, the renowned Italian polymath, artist, and Renaissance figure, born in 1452 in Vinci, near Florence, and who passed away in 1519.
Over the centuries, the name Leonardo has been associated with several other influential individuals across various fields. Leonardo Fibonacci, the Italian mathematician who introduced the Fibonacci sequence to the Western world, lived from around 1170 to 1240. Leonardo Bruni, an Italian humanist and historian, was a prominent figure of the Renaissance, born in 1370 and died in 1444.
In the realm of art and literature, Leonardo da Vinci stands out as one of the most iconic bearers of this name, renowned for his masterpieces such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Another notable figure was Leonardo da Porto Maurizio, an Italian Catholic preacher and saint who lived from 1676 to 1751.
The name Leonardo has also been carried by notable figures in science and exploration. Leonardo Torriani, an Italian mathematician and astronomer, lived from 1559 to 1628 and made significant contributions to the field of celestial mechanics. Leonardo Murialdo, an Italian priest and saint, lived from 1828 to 1900 and is revered for his work in education and social welfare.
While the name Leonardo has its roots in Italy, it has since spread to other parts of the world, with various spellings and adaptations in different languages. However, the essence of its meaning, "brave as a lion," has remained a common thread throughout its history, making it a name often associated with courage, strength, and determination.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Leonardo
People
Leonardo + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Leonardo as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with L
Other first names starting with L with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Leonardo: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Leonardo?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 89,466 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Leonardo 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 3,831 US residents.
Is Leonardo a common name?
We classify Leonardo as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 92,384 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Leonardo most popular?
The single biggest year for Leonardo was 2019, when 4,431 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Leonardo is about 17 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Leonardo in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 82,532 people with the name Leonardo, or 27.33 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #640 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 Leonardo 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 Leonardo?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Leonardo appears almost entirely male. Of the 82,530 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 Leonardo?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Leonardo is Hispanic at 80.7%. The next largest groups are White (12.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (3.5%). 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 Leonardo most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Leonardo in the 2020 Census, accounting for 80.7% (66,615 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 Leonardo in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Leonardo a male name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Leonardo 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 Leonardo still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Leonardo 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 Leonardo 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 are called Leonardo?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.