Otavio
A masculine Portuguese name derived from the Germanic "Otho", meaning "wealthy".
Name Census estimates that about 78 living Americans carry the first name Otavio. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Otavio today is around 9 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Otavio births was 2024 (10 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Otavio. 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 Otavio with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Otavio. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
78
~ 1 in 4,394,286 Americans
Peak year
2024
10 babies that year
Average age
9
years old
2024 SSA rank
#8,136
Tracked since 2007
Census
Otavio in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 320 people with the first name Otavio, which placed it at #28,183 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
#28,183
National first-name rank
People counted
320
320 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
66.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Otavio
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Otavio is White at 66.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (20.3%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.3%). 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 Otavio 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 Otavio at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White66.3% · 212
- Hispanic or Latino20.3% · 65
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.3% · 17
- Black or African American4.1% · 13
- Two or more races4.1% · 13
Popularity
Otavio: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Otavio from the 2000s through to the 2020s, spanning 3 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 38 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Otavio 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 Otavio during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Otavios live
Origin
Meaning and history of Otavio
The name Otavio has its origins in Latin and derives from the Roman family name Octavius. This name traces back to the Latin word "octavus," meaning "eighth." The name Octavius was initially used as a praenomen, the personal name given to a Roman male at birth, indicating that the bearer was the eighth son in the family.
One of the most famous historical figures to bear this name was Gaius Octavius, later known as Augustus, the first Roman emperor. He was born in 63 BC and ruled from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD. Octavius was the grand-nephew of Julius Caesar, who adopted him as his heir.
The name Octavius continued to be used in ancient Rome and throughout the Roman Empire. It was particularly prevalent among noble families and those with ties to the imperial lineage. An early Christian martyr, Saint Octavius, is recorded as having lived in the 3rd century AD in North Africa.
During the Middle Ages, the name took on various spellings and forms across different regions of Europe. In Italy, it evolved into the modern Italian name Ottavio, which later gave rise to the Portuguese and Spanish variant Otavio.
Notable historical figures named Otavio include Otavio Frias, a Brazilian journalist and newspaper publisher who lived from 1912 to 2018. Another is Otavio Mangabeira, a Brazilian lawyer, diplomat, and politician who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1953 to 1954 and was born in 1886.
Otavio Paranhos, born in 1914, was a Brazilian politician and diplomat who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1967 to 1979. Otavio Arantes, born in 1924, was a renowned Brazilian architect and a key figure in the modernist movement in Brazil.
Otavio Paz, a Mexican poet, writer, and diplomat, was born in 1914 and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990. He is considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century in the Spanish-speaking world.
People
Otavio + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Otavio 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
Otavio: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Otavio?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 78 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Otavio 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 4,394,286 US residents.
Is Otavio a common name?
We classify Otavio as "Very Rare". It ranks above 60.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 79 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Otavio most popular?
The single biggest year for Otavio was 2024, when 10 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Otavio is about 9 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Otavio in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 320 people with the name Otavio, or 0.11 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #28,183 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 Otavio 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 Otavio?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Otavio appears almost entirely male. Of the 326 people counted with this name, 99.4% 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 Otavio?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Otavio is White at 66.3%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (20.3%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.3%). 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 Otavio most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Otavio in the 2020 Census, accounting for 66.3% (212 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 Otavio in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Otavio a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Otavio 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 Otavio still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Otavio 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 Otavio 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 Otavio as a first name?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.