Paris
A feminine name of ancient Greek origin meaning "she of Paris".
Name Census estimates that about 39,934 living Americans carry the first name Paris. It sits at #484 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 78.3% of registrations being female. The average person named Paris today is around 23 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Paris births was 2004 (2,246 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Paris. 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 Paris with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Paris started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
People living today
40K
~ 1 in 8,583 Americans
Peak year
2004
2,246 babies that year
Average age
23
years old
2024 SSA rank
#484
Tracked since 1881
Census
Paris in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 30,273 people with the first name Paris, which placed it at #1,247 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
#1,247
National first-name rank
People counted
30K
30,273 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
10.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
57.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Paris
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Paris is Black at 57.1%. The next largest groups are White (22.0%) and Hispanic (11.2%). 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 Paris 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 Paris at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American57.1% · 17,275
- White22.0% · 6,675
- Hispanic or Latino11.2% · 3,389
- Two or more races6.6% · 2,011
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.3% · 700
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 223
Gender
Gender distribution for Paris
Paris is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 42,357 total registrations, 9,200 (21.7%) were male and 33,157 (78.3%) were female.
Paris as a male name
- Ranked #2,583 in 2024
- 52 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1991 (297 births)
Paris as a female name
- Ranked #484 in 2024
- 633 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2004 (2,150 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Paris leans strongly female. 24,407 people counted with this name were female (80.6%), compared with 5,868 male bearers (19.4%).
Popularity
Paris: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Paris from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 11,791 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Paris remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Paris 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 Paris during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Paris' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 48 states and territories. California, Texas, Illinois recorded the most babies named Paris, while Maine, Alaska, South Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 742 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Paris
The name Paris originated from the ancient Greek Παρίς (Parīs). It stems from an older word meaning "a Pariah" or "beyond" in the ancient Sanskrit language. The name was also associated with the Greek word "pâris" meaning "of equal value, equal in appearance or equal in age." This connects the name to the concept of fairness, beauty, and equality.
Paris was the name of the famous mythological figure in Greek mythology, also known as Alexander or Paris of Troy. According to the Iliad by Homer, Paris was a prince of Troy who caused the Trojan War by taking Helen, the wife of the Spartan king Menelaus, to Troy. His abduction of Helen is cited as one of the main catalysts for the decade-long Trojan War.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Paris dates back to the 8th century BC in ancient Greece. A famous bearer of the name was Paris of Troy, the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, who lived around the late 13th or early 12th century BC during the Trojan War.
In ancient Roman mythology, Paris was also the name of a young shepherd who was chosen to judge a contest between the goddesses Juno, Minerva, and Venus. He awarded the golden apple to Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, which ultimately led to the Trojan War.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Paris. One of the most famous was Paris, a 3rd-century Christian martyr and bishop of the Italian town of Arezzo, who was beheaded during the persecution of Christians under the Roman Emperor Decius in 250 AD.
In the 16th century, Paris Bordone (1500-1571) was an Italian Renaissance painter known for his portraits and religious works. Another noteworthy individual was Paris François Poulain de la Barre (1647-1723), a French philosopher and feminist who advocated for women's rights and gender equality.
The name Paris also has literary connections. In William Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet," Paris is a wealthy young nobleman who is betrothed to Juliet but is ultimately killed by Romeo. Additionally, Paris was the name of a character in the Greek play "The Trojan Women" by Euripides, written in 415 BC.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Paris
People
Paris + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Paris as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with P
Other first names starting with P with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Paris: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Paris?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 39,934 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Paris 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 8,583 US residents.
Is Paris a common name?
We classify Paris as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 42,357 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Paris most popular?
The single biggest year for Paris was 2004, when 2,246 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Paris is about 23 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Paris in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 30,273 people with the name Paris, or 10.02 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,247 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 Paris 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 Paris?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Paris leans strongly female. 24,407 people counted with this name were female (80.6%), compared with 5,868 male bearers (19.4%). 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 Paris?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Paris is Black at 57.1%. The next largest groups are White (22.0%) and Hispanic (11.2%). 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 Paris most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Paris in the 2020 Census, accounting for 57.1% (17,275 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 Paris in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Paris a female name?
Yes, 78.3% of people registered as Paris in the SSA data are female. 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 Paris still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Paris 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 Paris 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 Paris?
You can see how many Americans are named Paris on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.