Rio
From Portuguese meaning "river" or name used in reference to Rio de Janeiro.
Name Census estimates that about 7,022 living Americans carry the first name Rio. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 69.5% of registrations being male. The average person named Rio today is around 14 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Rio births was 2024 (702 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Rio. 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 Rio with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Rio is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 14 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
7.0K
~ 1 in 48,811 Americans
Peak year
2024
702 babies that year
Average age
14
years old
2024 SSA rank
#516
Tracked since 1920
Census
Rio in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 4,559 people with the first name Rio, which placed it at #4,191 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
#4,191
National first-name rank
People counted
4.6K
4,559 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
34.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Rio
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Rio is White at 34.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (32.6%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (14.9%). 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 Rio 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 Rio at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White34.0% · 1,550
- Hispanic or Latino32.6% · 1,487
- Asian and Pacific Islander14.9% · 681
- Two or more races9.1% · 416
- Black or African American8.4% · 382
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 43
Gender
Gender distribution for Rio
Rio is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 7,139 total registrations, 4,962 (69.5%) were male and 2,177 (30.5%) were female.
Rio as a male name
- Ranked #516 in 2024
- 591 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (591 births)
Rio as a female name
- Ranked #1,813 in 2024
- 111 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2021 (124 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Rio on both sides of the split. Of the 4,560 people counted with this name, 2,768 were male (60.7%) and 1,792 were female (39.3%).
Popularity
Rio: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Rio from the 1920s through to the 2020s, spanning 10 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 2,892 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
Rio 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 Rio during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Rios live
The SSA's state-level files cover 37 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Rio, while Rhode Island, Oklahoma, Idaho recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 111 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Rio
The name Rio is a Spanish and Portuguese word meaning "river". It is believed to have originated from the Latin word "rivus", which also means river or stream. The name Rio has been used as a given name for both males and females across various cultures and regions.
In Spain and Portugal, the name Rio has been in use for centuries, often given to children born near rivers or in riverside towns. It was also a popular name among explorers and navigators, who often encountered and named rivers during their voyages.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Rio can be found in the 15th century, when Portuguese explorer Rio de Sousa (1460-1516) was named after the Douro River in northern Portugal. Another notable bearer of the name was Rio de Janeiro (1502-1557), a Portuguese explorer and navigator who helped establish the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
In the realm of literature, the name Rio appears in the works of renowned authors such as Miguel de Cervantes, who featured a character named Rio in his novel "Don Quixote". Additionally, the Brazilian writer José de Alencar (1829-1877) wrote a novel titled "Rio Branco" in 1870, which may have contributed to the popularity of the name in Brazil.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Rio. One of the earliest was Rio de Goa (1530-1594), a Portuguese Jesuit missionary who worked in India. Later, Rio Branco (1819-1880) was a Brazilian diplomat and politician who played a crucial role in resolving border disputes between Brazil and its neighbors.
In the 20th century, Rio Preisner (1925-2003) was a Polish film composer known for his collaborations with director Krzysztof Kieślowski. Rio Ferdinand (born 1978) is an English former professional footballer who captained Manchester United and the English national team.
Another notable bearer of the name is Rio Mavuba (born 1984), a French professional footballer who has represented the French national team and played for various clubs in Europe.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Rio
People
Rio + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Rio 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
Rio: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Rio?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 7,022 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Rio 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 48,811 US residents.
Is Rio a common name?
We classify Rio as "Rare". It ranks above 97.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 7,139 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Rio most popular?
The single biggest year for Rio was 2024, when 702 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Rio is about 14 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Rio in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 4,559 people with the name Rio, or 1.51 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #4,191 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 Rio 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 Rio?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Rio on both sides of the split. Of the 4,560 people counted with this name, 2,768 were male (60.7%) and 1,792 were female (39.3%). 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 Rio?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Rio is White at 34.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (32.6%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (14.9%). 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 Rio most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Rio in the 2020 Census, accounting for 34.0% (1,550 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 Rio in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Rio a male name?
Yes, 69.5% of people registered as Rio 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 Rio still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Rio 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 Rio 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 share the name Rio?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.