Rue
A French feminine name referring to a small street or path.
Name Census estimates that about 1,269 living Americans carry the first name Rue. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 81.9% of registrations being female. The average person named Rue today is around 14 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Rue births was 2024 (205 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Rue. 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 Rue with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Rue 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
1.3K
~ 1 in 270,098 Americans
Peak year
2024
205 babies that year
Average age
14
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,241
Tracked since 1896
Census
Rue in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 820 people with the first name Rue, which placed it at #14,393 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
#14,393
National first-name rank
People counted
820
820 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
62.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Rue
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Rue is White at 62.7%. The next largest groups are Black (13.2%) and Hispanic (9.0%). 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 Rue 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 Rue at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White62.7% · 514
- Black or African American13.2% · 108
- Hispanic or Latino9.0% · 74
- Two or more races7.6% · 62
- Asian and Pacific Islander7.1% · 58
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 4
Gender
Gender distribution for Rue
Rue leans heavily female at 81.9% of total registrations, but 309 boys have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Rue as a male name
- Ranked #5,596 in 2024
- 17 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2022 (20 births)
Rue as a female name
- Ranked #1,241 in 2024
- 188 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (188 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Rue on both sides of the split. Of the 819 people counted with this name, 229 were male (28.0%) and 590 were female (72.0%).
Popularity
Rue: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Rue from the 1890s through to the 2020s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 810 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
Rue 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 Rue during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Rues live
The SSA's state-level files cover 25 states and territories. Texas, California, Utah recorded the most babies named Rue, while Tennessee, South Carolina, Oregon recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 19 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Rue
The name Rue is of French origin, derived from the Old French word "rue," which means "street" or "road." This name likely emerged in the Middle Ages, around the 12th or 13th century, when many French surnames were based on occupations, locations, or other descriptive terms.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Rue can be found in the 13th-century French epic poem "La Chanson de Roland," which mentions a character named Rue. In this context, the name may have referred to someone who lived or worked on a particular street or road.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals who bore the name Rue. One of the earliest was Rue de la Roche (c. 1280 - c. 1350), a French knight and nobleman who served under King Philip VI of France during the early stages of the Hundred Years' War.
Another prominent figure was Rue Brittain (1492 - 1556), an English Protestant reformer and writer who was persecuted for his religious beliefs during the reign of Queen Mary I. He is best known for his work "A Treatise of the Blessed Body and Blood of Christ," published in 1556.
In the 17th century, Rue de Montreuil (1611 - 1688) was a French botanist and horticulturist known for his work in cultivating and describing plants. He was a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences and served as the superintendent of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.
In the 19th century, Rue Pugh (1826 - 1905) was an American Civil War veteran who served as a private in the Union Army's 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He was present at several major battles, including Shiloh and Stones River.
More recently, Rue McClanahan (1934 - 2010) was an American actress best known for her role as Blanche Devereaux on the popular sitcom "The Golden Girls." She had a long and successful career in television, film, and theater, earning an Emmy Award and multiple nominations.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Rue
People
Rue + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Rue 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
Rue: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Rue?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,269 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Rue 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 270,098 US residents.
Is Rue a common name?
We classify Rue as "Rare". It ranks above 91.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,704 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Rue most popular?
The single biggest year for Rue was 2024, when 205 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Rue 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 Rue in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 820 people with the name Rue, or 0.27 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #14,393 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 Rue 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 Rue?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Rue on both sides of the split. Of the 819 people counted with this name, 229 were male (28.0%) and 590 were female (72.0%). 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 Rue?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Rue is White at 62.7%. The next largest groups are Black (13.2%) and Hispanic (9.0%). 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 Rue most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Rue in the 2020 Census, accounting for 62.7% (514 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 Rue in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Rue a female name?
Yes, 81.9% of people registered as Rue 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 Rue still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Rue 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 Rue 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 Rue as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.