Sully
Variant of the French surname Sullivan meaning "dark-eyed" or "one-eyed".
Name Census estimates that about 990 living Americans carry the first name Sully. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 63.9% of registrations being male. The average person named Sully today is around 19 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Sully births was 2011 (47 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Sully. 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 Sully with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Sully was once a predominantly female name but has become increasingly popular for boys in recent decades.
- • Sully sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
People living today
990
~ 1 in 346,217 Americans
Peak year
2011
47 babies that year
Average age
19
years old
2024 SSA rank
#3,577
Tracked since 1980
Census
Sully in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,371 people with the first name Sully, which placed it at #9,912 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
#9,912
National first-name rank
People counted
1.4K
1,371 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
47.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Sully
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Sully is White at 47.9%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (45.4%) and Two or More Races (2.6%). 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 Sully 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 Sully at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White47.9% · 657
- Hispanic or Latino45.4% · 622
- Two or more races2.6% · 36
- Black or African American2.3% · 31
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.3% · 18
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 7
Gender
Gender distribution for Sully
Sully is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 1,009 total registrations, 645 (63.9%) were male and 364 (36.1%) were female.
Sully as a male name
- Ranked #3,577 in 2024
- 32 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2011 (42 births)
Sully as a female name
- Ranked #17,335 in 2024
- 5 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1984 (40 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Sully on both sides of the split. Of the 1,375 people counted with this name, 718 were male (52.2%) and 657 were female (47.8%).
Popularity
Sully: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Sully from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 322 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Sully remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Sully 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 Sully during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Sullys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 5 states and territories. California, New York, Illinois recorded the most babies named Sully, while Wisconsin, Texas, Illinois recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 27 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Sully
The name Sully has its origins in the Norman French language, derived from the Old French word "soule," meaning "sun" or "sunlight." It was initially a surname that emerged in the 11th century, during the Norman conquest of England.
The earliest recorded use of Sully as a given name dates back to the 12th century, with the birth of Sully d'Amboise in 1163. He was a French nobleman and writer, best known for his biography of King Louis VII of France.
In the 13th century, Sully was the name of a prominent French statesman and finance minister, Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully (1560-1641). He served under King Henry IV of France and played a significant role in reforming the country's finances and infrastructure.
Another notable figure with the name Sully was Thomas Sully (1783-1872), an American painter and portraitist. He is renowned for his portraits of prominent figures such as Queen Victoria, Thomas Jefferson, and the Marquis de Lafayette.
In the 20th century, Sully was the nickname of James "Sully" Sullivan (1892-1955), an American baseball player who played for the Boston Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians.
One of the most famous bearers of the name Sully in recent history is Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III (born 1951), the American pilot who safely landed a disabled passenger jet on the Hudson River in 2009, saving the lives of all 155 people on board.
While the name Sully has French origins, it has been embraced across various cultures and has gained popularity as a given name in its own right, transcending its initial use as a surname.
People
Sully + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Sully 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
Sully: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Sully?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 990 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Sully 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 346,217 US residents.
Is Sully a common name?
We classify Sully as "Very Rare". It ranks above 90% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,009 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Sully most popular?
The single biggest year for Sully was 2011, when 47 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Sully is about 19 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Sully in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,371 people with the name Sully, or 0.45 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #9,912 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 Sully 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 Sully?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Sully on both sides of the split. Of the 1,375 people counted with this name, 718 were male (52.2%) and 657 were female (47.8%). 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 Sully?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Sully is White at 47.9%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (45.4%) and Two or More Races (2.6%). 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 Sully most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Sully in the 2020 Census, accounting for 47.9% (657 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 Sully in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Sully a male name?
Yes, 63.9% of people registered as Sully 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 Sully still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Sully 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 Sully 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 Sully?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many Americans are named Sully at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.