Wane
A masculine name of Old English origin meaning "to diminish".
Name Census estimates that about 110 living Americans carry the first name Wane. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Wane today is around 70 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Wane births was 1955 (22 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Wane. 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.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Wane is about 70 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Wanes were born before 1966.
People living today
110
~ 1 in 3,115,949 Americans
Peak year
1955
22 babies that year
Average age
70
years old
1965 SSA rank
#4,415
Tracked since 1922
Popularity
Wane: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Wane from the 1920s through to the 1960s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 82 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1950s peak, Wane remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Wane 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 Wane during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Wanes live
Origin
Meaning and history of Wane
The name Wane is a relatively uncommon given name with roots in Old English and Old Germanic languages. It is derived from the Old English word "wanian" or the Old Germanic "wanōn," both of which mean "to wane" or "to decrease." This name likely originated in the early medieval period, around the 5th to 10th centuries AD, in the areas of what is now England and northern Germany.
One of the earliest recorded mentions of the name Wane can be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a collection of annals documenting the history of the Anglo-Saxons in England. In the entry for the year 685 AD, a person named Wane is mentioned as being present at a council of clergy held in Hertfordshire.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the name Wane appears to have been used primarily in England and parts of northern Europe, though it remained relatively rare. One notable bearer of the name was Wane the Younger, a Benedictine monk and chronicler who lived in the 11th century and wrote a history of the abbey of Ramsey in Cambridgeshire, England.
In the 13th century, a man named Wane of Grantham was recorded as being a member of the religious order of Franciscan friars in England. Another individual named Wane Longsword was a knight from Northumbria who fought in the Battle of Lewes in 1264 during the Second Barons' War.
During the Renaissance period, the name Wane seems to have fallen out of favor, with few recorded instances of its use. However, in the 17th century, a Dutch explorer named Wane Van Diemen is noted for his voyages to the East Indies and his role in the colonization of what is now Indonesia.
In more recent times, one of the most famous bearers of the name Wane was Wane Morse, an American inventor and artist who lived from 1805 to 1872. He is best known for his contributions to the development of the telegraph and the Morse code communication system.
People
Wane + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Wane as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with W
Other first names starting with W with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Wane: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Wane?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 110 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Wane 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 3,115,949 US residents.
Is Wane a common name?
We classify Wane as "Very Rare". It ranks above 65.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 160 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Wane most popular?
The single biggest year for Wane was 1955, when 22 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Wane is about 70 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Wane a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Wane 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.