Olie
A Scandinavian diminutive form of the masculine given name Oliver, meaning "olive tree."
Name Census estimates that about 109 living Americans carry the first name Olie. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 57.9% of registrations being male. The average person named Olie today is around 75 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Olie births was 1920 (35 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Olie. 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 Olie with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Olie is about 75 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Olies were born before 1961.
People living today
109
~ 1 in 3,144,535 Americans
Peak year
1920
35 babies that year
Average age
75
years old
2019 SSA rank
#7,279
Tracked since 1880
Census
Olie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 281 people with the first name Olie, which placed it at #30,797 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
#30,797
National first-name rank
People counted
281
281 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
57.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Olie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Olie is White at 57.7%. The next largest groups are Black (24.2%) and Hispanic (8.9%). 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 Olie 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 Olie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White57.7% · 162
- Black or African American24.2% · 68
- Hispanic or Latino8.9% · 25
- Two or more races4.3% · 12
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.6% · 10
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.4% · 4
Gender
Gender distribution for Olie
Olie is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 997 total registrations, 577 (57.9%) were male and 420 (42.1%) were female.
Olie as a male name
- Ranked #13,586 in 2019
- 5 male births in 2019
- Peak: 1916 (21 births)
Olie as a female name
- Ranked #7,279 in 1962
- 5 female births in 1962
- Peak: 1920 (23 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Olie on both sides of the split. Of the 287 people counted with this name, 198 were male (69.0%) and 89 were female (31.0%).
Popularity
Olie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Olie from the 1880s through to the 2010s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 253 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
Olie 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 Olie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Olies live
Origin
Meaning and history of Olie
The name Olie is a diminutive form of the Dutch name Olaf, which is derived from the Old Norse name Áleifr. This name is composed of the elements "anu" meaning "ancestor" and "leifr" meaning "descendant" or "heir." Thus, the name Olie has its origins in the Norse culture and language, dating back to the Viking Age in Scandinavia (8th to 11th centuries).
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Olaf can be found in the Icelandic Landnámabók (Book of Settlements), which mentions an Olaf the White who settled in Iceland in the 9th century. The name also appears in various Old Norse sagas and chronicles, such as the Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson, which recounts the lives of Norwegian kings, including Olaf Tryggvason (963-1000) and Olaf the Stout (995-1030).
In the Middle Ages, the name Olaf became popular in Scandinavia, particularly in Norway, where several kings bore the name. One of the most notable was St. Olaf (995-1030), the King of Norway from 1015 to 1028, who played a significant role in the Christianization of Norway and is revered as the patron saint of the country.
The name Olie, as a diminutive of Olaf, likely emerged in the Netherlands and other Dutch-speaking regions during the late medieval or early modern period. One notable bearer of the name Olie was the Dutch painter Olie Sager (1572-1634), a contemporary of Rembrandt and a member of the Haarlem School of painting.
Another historical figure with the name Olie was Olie Nordberg (1893-1980), a Swedish footballer who played as a forward and represented Sweden in the 1920 and 1924 Summer Olympics, winning bronze medals in both competitions.
In Norway, one of the most famous bearers of the name Olaf was the explorer Olaf Swensen (1898-1936), who led several expeditions to the Arctic regions and was the first person to fly over the North Pole in a semi-rigid airship, the Norge, in 1926.
Other notable individuals with the name Olie or its variations include Olie Tandsgaard (1891-1962), a Danish actor and film director, and Olie Kolzig (born 1970), a German-Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Washington Capitals and Tampa Bay Lightning.
People
Olie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Olie as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with O
Other first names starting with O with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Olie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Olie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 109 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Olie 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 3,144,535 US residents.
Is Olie a common name?
We classify Olie as "Very Rare". It ranks above 65.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 997 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Olie most popular?
The single biggest year for Olie was 1920, when 35 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Olie is about 75 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Olie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 281 people with the name Olie, or 0.09 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #30,797 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 Olie 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 Olie?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Olie on both sides of the split. Of the 287 people counted with this name, 198 were male (69.0%) and 89 were female (31.0%). 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 Olie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Olie is White at 57.7%. The next largest groups are Black (24.2%) and Hispanic (8.9%). 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 Olie most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Olie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 57.7% (162 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 Olie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Olie a male name?
Yes, 57.9% of people registered as Olie 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 Olie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Olie 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 Olie 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 named Olie?
Find out how many people have the name Olie on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.