Mann
A masculine name of Germanic origin meaning "human being" or "man".
Name Census estimates that about 60 living Americans carry the first name Mann. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Mann today is around 24 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Mann births was 1918 (7 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Mann. 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 Mann with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Mann. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
60
~ 1 in 5,712,572 Americans
Peak year
1918
7 babies that year
Average age
24
years old
2018 SSA rank
#13,413
Tracked since 1909
Census
Mann in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 688 people with the first name Mann, which placed it at #16,413 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
#16,413
National first-name rank
People counted
688
688 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
34.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Mann
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mann is White at 34.2%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (33.7%) and Black (22.1%). 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 Mann 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 Mann at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White34.2% · 235
- Asian and Pacific Islander33.7% · 232
- Black or African American22.1% · 152
- Hispanic or Latino8.1% · 56
- Two or more races1.5% · 10
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.4% · 3
Popularity
Mann: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Mann from the 1900s through to the 2010s, spanning 8 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 38 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1920s peak, Mann remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Mann 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 Mann during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Mann
The name Mann has its origins in the Old Germanic language, derived from the word "mann," which means "man" or "human being." It can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root "*man-" meaning "human being." This name has been in use since ancient times, particularly in Germanic-speaking regions of Europe.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Mann can be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a collection of annals narrating the history of the Anglo-Saxons. This work, compiled in the late 9th century, mentions individuals bearing the name Mann.
In Old Norse literature, the name Mann appears in the Poetic Edda, a collection of ancient Norse poems. One of the poems, "Völuspá," mentions a figure called "Mann" who is believed to be the progenitor of humankind.
The name Mann has been borne by several notable figures throughout history. One of the earliest was Mann the Hermit, a 6th-century Irish monk and saint who founded a monastery on the island of Inishmore in County Galway, Ireland.
Another prominent bearer of the name was Johann Gottlieb Mann (1744-1804), a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to the study of dynamics and the theory of heat.
Herman Mann (1887-1971) was a German-American actor and director who had a prolific career in Hollywood during the early 20th century. He appeared in over 100 films and directed several notable movies, including "The Black Swan" (1942) and "The Bamboo Blonde" (1946).
In the field of literature, Thomas Mann (1875-1955) was a renowned German novelist, short story writer, and essayist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929.
A more recent figure with the name Mann is Michael Mann, born in 1943, an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is known for his critically acclaimed films such as "The Last of the Mohicans" (1992), "Heat" (1995), and "The Insider" (1999).
People
Mann + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Mann as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Mann: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Mann?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 60 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Mann 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 Mann a common name?
We classify Mann 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, 132 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Mann most popular?
The single biggest year for Mann was 1918, when 7 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Mann is about 24 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Mann in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 688 people with the name Mann, or 0.23 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #16,413 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 Mann 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 Mann?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Mann leans strongly male. 585 people counted with this name were male (85.2%), compared with 102 female bearers (14.8%). 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 Mann?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mann is White at 34.2%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (33.7%) and Black (22.1%). 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 Mann most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Mann in the 2020 Census, accounting for 34.2% (235 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 Mann in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Mann a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Mann 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 Mann still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Mann 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 Mann 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 have the name Mann?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.