Ruslan
A Turkish masculine name derived from the Persian word meaning "lion".
Name Census estimates that about 584 living Americans carry the first name Ruslan. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Ruslan today is around 15 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Ruslan births was 2018 (29 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Ruslan. 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 Ruslan with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
584
~ 1 in 586,908 Americans
Peak year
2018
29 babies that year
Average age
15
years old
2024 SSA rank
#4,152
Tracked since 1992
Census
Ruslan in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 3,227 people with the first name Ruslan, which placed it at #5,354 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
#5,354
National first-name rank
People counted
3.2K
3,227 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
88.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Ruslan
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ruslan is White at 88.7%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (4.1%) and Two or More Races (4.0%). 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 Ruslan 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 Ruslan at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White88.7% · 2,862
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.1% · 131
- Two or more races4.0% · 128
- Hispanic or Latino3.1% · 99
- Black or African American0.2% · 7
Popularity
Ruslan: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Ruslan from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 222 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Ruslan remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Ruslan 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 Ruslan during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Ruslans live
The SSA's state-level files cover 5 states and territories. Washington, California, Florida recorded the most babies named Ruslan, while Pennsylvania, New York, Florida recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 13 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Ruslan
The name Ruslan has its origins in the Persian language, deriving from the word "rustin," which means "brave" or "valiant." It is believed to have emerged during the medieval period, possibly as early as the 9th or 10th century AD, within the territories of the Persian Empire.
One of the earliest known references to the name Ruslan can be found in the epic poem "Ruslan and Ludmila" by Alexander Pushkin, the renowned Russian poet of the early 19th century. In this poem, Ruslan is portrayed as a heroic knight who embarks on a quest to rescue his beloved Ludmila from the clutches of an evil sorcerer.
Another historical figure bearing the name Ruslan was Ruslan Gerberstein, a 16th-century diplomat and chronicler from the Grand Duchy of Moscow. His accounts of the Russian Empire during the reign of Ivan the Terrible are considered valuable historical sources.
In the realm of literature, Ruslan Khalidov was a prominent 20th-century Soviet writer and literary critic, known for his works on Azerbaijani and Persian literature. He was born in 1910 and passed away in 1988.
Ruslan Provodnikov, born in 1984, is a former professional boxer from Russia who held the WBO interim light welterweight title in 2013. He was known for his relentless fighting style and memorable bouts against renowned boxers like Timothy Bradley and Mike Alvarado.
Ruslan Tsarni, born in 1953, is an American citizen of Chechen descent who gained attention in 2013 for his public condemnation of the Boston Marathon bombing carried out by his nephews, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
While the name Ruslan has its roots in the Persian language, it has been adopted and used across various cultures and languages, particularly in the Slavic regions, where it has gained popularity as a given name for males.
People
Ruslan + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Ruslan 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
Ruslan: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Ruslan?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 584 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Ruslan 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 586,908 US residents.
Is Ruslan a common name?
We classify Ruslan as "Very Rare". It ranks above 86% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 590 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Ruslan most popular?
The single biggest year for Ruslan was 2018, when 29 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Ruslan is about 15 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Ruslan in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 3,227 people with the name Ruslan, or 1.07 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #5,354 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 Ruslan 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 Ruslan?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ruslan appears almost entirely male. Of the 3,225 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Ruslan?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ruslan is White at 88.7%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (4.1%) and Two or More Races (4.0%). 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 Ruslan most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Ruslan in the 2020 Census, accounting for 88.7% (2,862 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 Ruslan in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Ruslan a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Ruslan 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 Ruslan still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Ruslan 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 Ruslan 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 common is the name Ruslan?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many Americans are named Ruslan at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.