Renan
French given name derived from Roman name Renatus meaning "reborn" or "regenerated".
Name Census estimates that about 383 living Americans carry the first name Renan. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Renan today is around 23 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Renan births was 2000 (18 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Renan. 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 Renan with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
383
~ 1 in 894,920 Americans
Peak year
2000
18 babies that year
Average age
23
years old
2024 SSA rank
#8,162
Tracked since 1968
Census
Renan in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,538 people with the first name Renan, which placed it at #9,158 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
#9,158
National first-name rank
People counted
1.5K
1,538 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
47.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Renan
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Renan is Hispanic at 47.7%. The next largest groups are White (32.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (12.1%). 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 Renan 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 Renan at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino47.7% · 734
- White32.2% · 495
- Asian and Pacific Islander12.1% · 186
- Black or African American6.2% · 95
- Two or more races1.4% · 22
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.4% · 6
Popularity
Renan: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Renan from the 1960s through to the 2020s, spanning 7 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 98 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Renan remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Renan 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 Renan during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Renans live
Origin
Meaning and history of Renan
The name Renan has its origins in the Celtic Brythonic languages of ancient Britain, specifically in the Welsh and Breton tongues. It is derived from the root word "ren," meaning "king" or "sovereign." The earliest recorded use of this name dates back to the 6th century AD.
In medieval Welsh literature, Renan appears as the name of a character in the Mabinogion, a collection of prose stories from the 12th and 13th centuries. This character was a nobleman and warrior, reflecting the regal connotations of the name's etymology.
During the Middle Ages, the name Renan was also found in Brittany, a region of northwestern France with strong cultural ties to the Celtic heritage of the British Isles. It was borne by several notable figures, including Renan de Rohan (1189-1268), a powerful Breton nobleman and crusader.
In the early modern period, the name gained prominence in French literature through the works of the Renaissance writer Renan Le Coz (1510-1583), a poet and historian from Brittany. Another famous bearer of the name was the 19th-century French philosopher and scholar Ernest Renan (1823-1892), best known for his influential work on the historical study of Christianity.
Other notable individuals named Renan throughout history include Renan Almendras Cobian (1892-1965), a Honduran poet and diplomat; Renan Lemos (1960-2023), a Brazilian actor and television presenter; and Renan Demirkan (born 1955), a Turkish novelist and playwright.
Across its long history, the name Renan has maintained its association with Celtic cultural roots and connotations of nobility and leadership. While its popularity has fluctuated over time, it has endured as a distinctive and evocative name with deep ties to the linguistic and literary traditions of the British Isles and Brittany.
People
Renan + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Renan as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with R
Other first names starting with R with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Renan: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Renan?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 383 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Renan 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 894,920 US residents.
Is Renan a common name?
We classify Renan as "Very Rare". It ranks above 81.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 391 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Renan most popular?
The single biggest year for Renan was 2000, when 18 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Renan 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 Renan in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,538 people with the name Renan, or 0.51 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #9,158 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 Renan 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 Renan?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Renan leans strongly male. 1,497 people counted with this name were male (97.1%), compared with 44 female bearers (2.9%). 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 Renan?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Renan is Hispanic at 47.7%. The next largest groups are White (32.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (12.1%). 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 Renan most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Renan in the 2020 Census, accounting for 47.7% (734 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 Renan in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Renan a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Renan 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 Renan still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Renan 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 Renan 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 Renan?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.