Osvaldo
A masculine name of German origin meaning "divine power" or "divine friend".
Name Census estimates that about 13,949 living Americans carry the first name Osvaldo. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Osvaldo today is around 27 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Osvaldo births was 2004 (634 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Osvaldo. 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.
People living today
14K
~ 1 in 24,572 Americans
Peak year
2004
634 babies that year
Average age
27
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,314
Tracked since 1917
Census
Osvaldo in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 20,809 people with the first name Osvaldo, which placed it at #1,564 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
#1,564
National first-name rank
People counted
21K
20,809 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
6.9
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
96.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Osvaldo
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Osvaldo is Hispanic at 96.8%. The next largest groups are White (2.4%) and Black (0.6%). 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 Osvaldo 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 Osvaldo at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino96.8% · 20,138
- White2.4% · 509
- Black or African American0.6% · 115
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.1% · 28
- Two or more races0.1% · 13
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.0% · 6
Gender
Gender distribution for Osvaldo
Out of the 14,406 babies given the name Osvaldo since 1880, 99.9% 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.
Osvaldo as a male name
- Ranked #1,314 in 2024
- 148 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2004 (634 births)
Osvaldo as a female name
- Ranked #12,324 in 1999
- 7 female births in 1999
- Peak: 1999 (7 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Osvaldo appears almost entirely male. Of the 20,816 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Osvaldo: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Osvaldo from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 5,042 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Osvaldo 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 Osvaldo during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Osvaldos live
The SSA's state-level files cover 32 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Osvaldo, while Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 390 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Osvaldo
The name Osvaldo is of Germanic origin, deriving from the Old Norse name Ásvaldr, which is a compound of the elements ás meaning "god" and valdr meaning "ruler" or "wielder." It can be translated as "divine ruler" or "ruler of the gods." The name first emerged during the Viking Age, around the 8th to 11th centuries AD, and was particularly popular among the Norse peoples of Scandinavia and their settlements.
Osvaldo eventually spread beyond Scandinavia as the Vikings traveled and established settlements in various parts of Europe. It gained particular popularity in Italy, where it evolved into the Italian form Osvaldo. The earliest recorded instances of the name in Italy can be traced back to the 11th century.
One of the earliest known historical figures with the name Osvaldo was Osvaldo d'Angolemme, a Norman nobleman who lived in the 11th century and was a key figure in the Norman conquest of southern Italy. Another notable bearer of the name was Osvaldo Pollio, an Italian humanist scholar and historian who lived in the 15th century.
In the 16th century, there was Osvaldo Arrighi, an Italian calligrapher and type designer who created the influential Chancery cursive script. In the 17th century, Osvaldo Gherardini was an Italian painter known for his religious works and frescoes adorning churches in Florence and Rome.
Moving to the 19th century, Osvaldo Sertorio was an Italian politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy from 1887 to 1891. More recently, in the 20th century, Osvaldo Bayer was an Argentine writer, journalist, and human rights activist who fought against the military dictatorship in Argentina.
While the name Osvaldo has its roots in the Viking Age and was initially associated with the Germanic and Norse cultures, it has since spread and gained popularity across various regions, particularly in Italy, where it has a rich historical legacy spanning several centuries.
People
Osvaldo + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Osvaldo 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
Osvaldo: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Osvaldo?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 13,949 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Osvaldo 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 24,572 US residents.
Is Osvaldo a common name?
We classify Osvaldo as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 14,406 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Osvaldo most popular?
The single biggest year for Osvaldo was 2004, when 634 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Osvaldo is about 27 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Osvaldo in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 20,809 people with the name Osvaldo, or 6.89 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,564 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 Osvaldo 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 Osvaldo?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Osvaldo appears almost entirely male. Of the 20,816 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 Osvaldo?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Osvaldo is Hispanic at 96.8%. The next largest groups are White (2.4%) and Black (0.6%). 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 Osvaldo most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Osvaldo in the 2020 Census, accounting for 96.8% (20,138 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 Osvaldo in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Osvaldo a male name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Osvaldo 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 Osvaldo still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Osvaldo 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 Osvaldo 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 Osvaldo?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.