Spiro
Of Greek origin, representing a coiled serpent or spiral shape.
Name Census estimates that about 686 living Americans carry the first name Spiro. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Spiro today is around 45 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Spiro births was 1970 (26 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Spiro. 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.
People living today
686
~ 1 in 499,642 Americans
Peak year
1970
26 babies that year
Average age
45
years old
2024 SSA rank
#13,915
Tracked since 1913
Popularity
Spiro: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Spiro from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 182 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Spiro 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 Spiro during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Spiros live
Origin
Meaning and history of Spiro
The name Spiro originated from the Greek language and culture, dating back to ancient times. It is derived from the Greek word "speira," which means "coil" or "spiral." This connection to the spiral shape may have been influenced by the symbolic representation of the cycle of life or the coiling motion of serpents, which held significant meaning in ancient Greek mythology.
In Greek mythology, Spiro was a minor deity associated with the spring season and the renewal of life. He was often depicted as a young man adorned with flowers and holding a spiral-shaped staff, representing the cyclical nature of the seasons and the eternal cycle of growth and decay.
The earliest recorded use of the name Spiro dates back to the 5th century BCE, when it was mentioned in a Greek play by Euripides. It was a relatively uncommon name during ancient Greek times but gained popularity in certain regions, particularly in the Peloponnese and the Aegean islands.
One of the earliest notable individuals with the name Spiro was Spiro of Byzantium, a 3rd-century Greek philosopher and mathematician. He is credited with developing a method for calculating the volume of a sphere, which became known as the "Spiro formula."
In the Middle Ages, the name Spiro was relatively rare but continued to be used in some parts of the Byzantine Empire. One notable figure from this period was Spiro Doukas, a 12th-century Byzantine nobleman and military commander who played a significant role in the conflicts between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Turks.
During the Renaissance, the name Spiro gained some popularity in Italy, where it was often spelled as "Spirio" or "Spirione." Spirio Speroni, an Italian Renaissance humanist and playwright born in 1500, was a notable figure with this name.
In the 19th century, the name Spiro became more widely used in Greece and among Greek communities around the world. One prominent individual was Spiro Samara, a Greek revolutionary who fought against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s.
Another notable figure was Spiro Pitsios, a Greek merchant and philanthropist born in 1839, who made significant contributions to the development of education and healthcare in Greece.
People
Spiro + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Spiro as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with S
Other first names starting with S with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Spiro: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Spiro?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 686 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Spiro 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 499,642 US residents.
Is Spiro a common name?
We classify Spiro as "Very Rare". It ranks above 87.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,011 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Spiro most popular?
The single biggest year for Spiro was 1970, when 26 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Spiro is about 45 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Spiro a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Spiro 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.
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.