Lieutenant
An officer of junior-most commissioned rank in military services.
Name Census estimates that about 60 living Americans carry the first name Lieutenant. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Lieutenant today is around 77 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Lieutenant births was 1917 (12 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Lieutenant. 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
- • The typical person named Lieutenant is about 77 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Lieutenants were born before 1959.
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Lieutenant. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
60
~ 1 in 5,712,572 Americans
Peak year
1917
12 babies that year
Average age
77
years old
1965 SSA rank
#3,428
Tracked since 1912
Census
Lieutenant in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 99 people with the first name Lieutenant, which placed it at #53,419 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
#53,419
National first-name rank
People counted
99
99 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
90.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Lieutenant
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lieutenant is Black at 90.9%. The next largest groups are White (7.1%) and Two or More Races (2.0%). 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 Lieutenant 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 Lieutenant at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American90.9% · 90
- White7.1% · 7
- Two or more races2.0% · 2
Popularity
Lieutenant: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Lieutenant from the 1910s through to the 1960s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 50 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
Lieutenant 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 Lieutenant during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Lieutenants live
Origin
Meaning and history of Lieutenant
Lieutenant is an English word derived from the French word "lieu" meaning "place" and "tenant" meaning "holding". It originated as a military rank in the 16th century, referring to an officer who held a position or "place" on behalf of a higher authority.
The first recorded use of the term Lieutenant dates back to the early 16th century, with references found in English literature and military records from that period. One of the earliest known Lieutenants was Sir John Smythe, an English officer who served under King Henry VIII in the 1540s.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the rank of Lieutenant became widely established in European armies and navies. Notable historical figures who held the rank of Lieutenant include Horatio Nelson, a British naval officer who famously fought in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and George Washington, who served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Virginia militia before becoming the first President of the United States.
In the 19th century, the rank of Lieutenant gained prominence in the American Civil War, with figures such as Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a Union officer who received the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, and James Longstreet, a Confederate Lieutenant General known for his leadership at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863.
Other notable Lieutenants throughout history include Audie Murphy, an American soldier who became one of the most decorated soldiers of World War II, and Adolphe Pégoud, a French aviator who was one of the first pilots to perform aerobatic maneuvers in the early 20th century.
While Lieutenant is primarily a military rank, it has also been used as a given name, particularly in English-speaking countries. However, its use as a first name has been relatively uncommon compared to its widespread use as a military title.
People
Lieutenant + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Lieutenant 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
Lieutenant: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Lieutenant?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 60 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Lieutenant 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 5,712,572 US residents.
Is Lieutenant a common name?
We classify Lieutenant as "Very Rare". It ranks above 57.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 199 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Lieutenant most popular?
The single biggest year for Lieutenant was 1917, when 12 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Lieutenant is about 77 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Lieutenant in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 99 people with the name Lieutenant, or 0.03 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #53,419 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 Lieutenant 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 Lieutenant?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lieutenant leans strongly male. 95 people counted with this name were male (99.0%), compared with 1 female bearers (1.0%). 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 Lieutenant?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lieutenant is Black at 90.9%. The next largest groups are White (7.1%) and Two or More Races (2.0%). 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 Lieutenant most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Lieutenant in the 2020 Census, accounting for 90.9% (90 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 Lieutenant in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Lieutenant a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Lieutenant 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 Lieutenant still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Lieutenant 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 Lieutenant 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 common is the name Lieutenant?
If you just want to know how many people share the name Lieutenant, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.