Ronan
A masculine Irish name derived from the old Gaelic word "rón" meaning seal.
Name Census estimates that about 19,329 living Americans carry the first name Ronan. It sits at #257 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (98.8% of registrations). The average person named Ronan today is around 11 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Ronan births was 2024 (1,387 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Ronan. 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 Ronan with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Ronan is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 237 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • Ronan is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 11 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
19K
~ 1 in 17,733 Americans
Peak year
2024
1,387 babies that year
Average age
11
years old
2024 SSA rank
#257
Tracked since 1959
Census
Ronan in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 13,410 people with the first name Ronan, which placed it at #2,035 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
#2,035
National first-name rank
People counted
13K
13,410 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
4.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
75.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Ronan
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ronan is White at 75.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (9.8%) and Two or More Races (9.4%). 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 Ronan 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 Ronan at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White75.6% · 10,140
- Hispanic or Latino9.8% · 1,318
- Two or more races9.4% · 1,262
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.5% · 463
- Black or African American1.2% · 165
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 62
Gender
Gender distribution for Ronan
Ronan leans heavily male at 98.8% of total registrations, but 237 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Ronan as a male name
- Ranked #257 in 2024
- 1,370 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (1,370 births)
Ronan as a female name
- Ranked #6,851 in 2024
- 17 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2022 (29 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ronan leans strongly male. 13,215 people counted with this name were male (98.6%), compared with 192 female bearers (1.4%).
Popularity
Ronan: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Ronan from the 1950s through to the 2020s, spanning 8 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 9,208 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Ronan remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Ronan 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 Ronan during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Ronans live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Massachusetts recorded the most babies named Ronan, while Mississippi, Montana, Wyoming recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 354 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Ronan
The name Ronan is of Irish origin, derived from the Gaelic word "ronán," which means "little seal." It is believed to have emerged as a personal name in the early medieval period, around the 5th or 6th century AD, when it was common practice in Celtic cultures to name children after animals or natural elements.
One of the earliest recorded figures bearing the name Ronan was Saint Ronan, a 6th-century Irish abbot and missionary who established several monastic settlements in what is now Scotland. He is particularly revered in the Scottish Borders region, where the town of Innerleithen was formerly known as "Ronan's Toun" in his honor.
In ancient Irish literature, the name Ronan appears in the Ulster Cycle of heroic tales, which were likely composed between the 8th and 12th centuries. One notable character bearing the name is Ronan Fionn, a warrior and member of the Red Branch Knights who fought alongside the legendary figure Cú Chulainn.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the name Ronan remained relatively uncommon outside of Ireland and Scotland, but it continued to be used by Irish families, particularly those with ties to religious orders or monastic traditions. One notable bearer of the name was Ronan Finn (c. 1120-1189), an Irish cleric and writer who served as Archbishop of Armagh from 1176 until his death.
In more recent history, several individuals named Ronan have achieved prominence in various fields. These include Ronan O'Gara (born 1977), an Irish rugby union player who represented Ireland at the international level; Ronan Keating (born 1977), an Irish singer and musician who rose to fame as a member of the boy band Boyzone; and Ronan Farrow (born 1987), an American journalist and author known for his investigative reporting on the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
Other notable figures named Ronan include Ronan O'Rahilly (1940-2020), the Irish businessman and founder of the pirate radio station Radio Caroline; Ronan Bennett (born 1956), an Irish writer and screenwriter known for his novels and television work; and Ronan Vibert (born 1964), an English actor and voice artist best known for his work in animation and video games.
People
Ronan + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Ronan 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
Ronan: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Ronan?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 19,329 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Ronan 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 17,733 US residents.
Is Ronan a common name?
We classify Ronan as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 19,500 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Ronan most popular?
The single biggest year for Ronan was 2024, when 1,387 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Ronan is about 11 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Ronan in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 13,410 people with the name Ronan, or 4.44 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,035 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 Ronan 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 Ronan?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ronan leans strongly male. 13,215 people counted with this name were male (98.6%), compared with 192 female bearers (1.4%). 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 Ronan?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ronan is White at 75.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (9.8%) and Two or More Races (9.4%). 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 Ronan most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Ronan in the 2020 Census, accounting for 75.6% (10,140 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 Ronan in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Ronan a male name?
Yes, 98.8% of people registered as Ronan 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 Ronan still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Ronan 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 Ronan 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 Ronan as a first name?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.