Boy Names That Start With I
Boys' names beginning with I, ranked by how many babies actually got them — not by editorial preference — plus which ones are climbing and how the letter itself has moved.
- Share of boys, 2025
- 1.8%
- vs 1.7% in 2000
- Names in use
- 255
- 693 recorded since 1880
- Letter peaked
- 2012
- at 2.1% of names
- Rank among 26 letters
- #18
- by 2025 share
How I has fared since 1880
Share of all listed U.S. births given a name starting with I, year by year. Plotted as a share rather than a count — raw counts track how many babies were born, so every letter would appear to peak in 1957.
| Save name | Name & meaning | History 1926–2025, yearly counts; individually scaled | Babies 2025 · rank | 5-year rank movement | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,953#47 | Down 8 rank positions in five years | 2007 | |||
| 3,924#83 | Steady | 2005 | |||
| 5,267#57 | Down 6 rank positions in five years | 2006 | |||
| 2,240#163 | Down 10 rank positions in five years | 2004 | |||
| 1,081#315 | Down 78 rank positions in five years | 2007 | |||
| 301#822 | Down 19 rank positions in five years | 1947 | |||
| 90#1,783 | Down 84 rank positions in five years | 1918 | |||
| 1,307#263 | Up 87 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 80#1,937 | Down 118 rank positions in five years | 1923 | |||
| 120#1,480 | Down 123 rank positions in five years | 2001 | |||
| 258#915 | Down 288 rank positions in five years | 2008 | |||
| 298#830 | Up 185 rank positions in five years | 2006 | |||
| 815#390 | Down 9 rank positions in five years | 2015 | |||
| 755#426 | Up 46 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 939#351 | Up 90 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 439#635 | Down 146 rank positions in five years | 2009 | |||
| 88#1,815 | Up 136 rank positions in five years | 2000 | |||
| 55#2,460 | Down 451 rank positions in five years | 1953 | |||
| 186#1,139 | Up 55 rank positions in five years | 2007 | |||
| 121#1,469 | Down 197 rank positions in five years | 2017 | |||
| 168#1,207 | Down 76 rank positions in five years | 2015 | |||
| 266#895 | Down 49 rank positions in five years | 2019 | |||
| 391#694 | Up 134 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 237#969 | Up 42 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 90#1,784 | Down 462 rank positions in five years | 2011 | |||
| 100#1,664 | Up 191 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 204#1,065 | Up 298 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 124#1,445 | Down 95 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 231#989 | Up 441 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 253#933 | Up 368 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 84#1,877 | Up 25 rank positions in five years | 2009 | |||
| 98#1,682 | Up 72 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 200#1,075 | Up 402 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 129#1,413 | Up 268 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 269#884 | Up 363 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 66#2,170 | Up 989 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 336#767 | Up 1,609 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 215#1,030 | Up 281 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 89#1,798 | Up 766 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 133#1,384 | Up 497 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 60#2,317 | Down 461 rank positions in five years | 2019 | |||
| 56#2,431 | Down 101 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 113#1,531 | Up 454 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 60#2,316 | Up 680 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 58#2,369 | Up 443 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 56#2,429 | Up 428 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 98#1,681 | Up 2,377 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 79#1,948 | Up 1,145 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 57#2,404 | Up 2,924 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 56#2,430 | Up 10,368 rank positions in five years | 2025 |
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I names climbing fastest
Biggest I names of all time
By total applications since 1880 — a different list from the one above, because it counts every generation, not just this one.
Every other letter
Sources & methodology
Rankings and counts come from official birth card-application data, 1880–2025. Counts are card applications rather than births, and any name given to fewer than 5 babies of one sex in a year is not published — so “—” means genuinely uncommon, never invalid. The “climbing fastest” row ranks by five-year rank movement as a ratio, and a name must be inside the top 1,000 with at least 200 applications in 2025 to qualify — a looser gate than the site-wide trending list uses, because inside a single letter the stricter one leaves some letters empty. Letter shares are measured over listed names only, and the 25-year comparison is a generation rather than five years because letter fashion moves far more slowly than any one name.