Boy Names That Start With N
Boys' names beginning with N, 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
- 3.4%
- vs 3.9% in 2000
- Names in use
- 468
- 1,387 recorded since 1880
- Letter peaked
- 1999
- at 4.0% of names
- Rank among 26 letters
- #13
- by 2025 share
How N has fared since 1880
Share of all listed U.S. births given a name starting with N, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3,115#112 | Down 25 rank positions in five years | 1995 | |||
| 4,975#63 | Down 8 rank positions in five years | 2004 | |||
| 20,358#2 | Steady | 2024 | |||
| 2,565#140 | Down 15 rank positions in five years | 2002 | |||
| 169#1,200 | Down 72 rank positions in five years | 1928 | |||
| 4,846#65 | Down 4 rank positions in five years | 2015 | |||
| 288#851 | Down 100 rank positions in five years | 1954 | |||
| 2,053#177 | Up 25 rank positions in five years | 2003 | |||
| 300#825 | Down 155 rank positions in five years | 1959 | |||
| 82#1,914 | Down 342 rank positions in five years | 1959 | |||
| 635#478 | Down 61 rank positions in five years | 2014 | |||
| 124#1,447 | Down 26 rank positions in five years | 1960 | |||
| 118#1,498 | Down 455 rank positions in five years | 1998 | |||
| 375#719 | Down 115 rank positions in five years | 2004 | |||
| 341#755 | Down 75 rank positions in five years | 2007 | |||
| 1,357#255 | Down 15 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 442#632 | Up 89 rank positions in five years | 2000 | |||
| 743#429 | Down 52 rank positions in five years | 2010 | |||
| 2,066#174 | Up 144 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 617#487 | Down 127 rank positions in five years | 2019 | |||
| 1,046#325 | Up 33 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 469#605 | Down 60 rank positions in five years | 2016 | |||
| 113#1,535 | Up 205 rank positions in five years | 1991 | |||
| 144#1,337 | Down 88 rank positions in five years | 1920 | |||
| 206#1,061 | Down 410 rank positions in five years | 2017 | |||
| 147#1,319 | Down 132 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 93#1,748 | Up 137 rank positions in five years | 2007 | |||
| 202#1,071 | Up 9 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 86#1,848 | Down 75 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 102#1,651 | Down 412 rank positions in five years | 2020 | |||
| 108#1,581 | Up 229 rank positions in five years | 2009 | |||
| 149#1,308 | Down 550 rank positions in five years | 2020 | |||
| 204#1,066 | Up 35 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 155#1,273 | Up 324 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 97#1,694 | Up 318 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 164#1,230 | Down 109 rank positions in five years | 2020 | |||
| 225#1,006 | Up 1,248 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 130#1,407 | Down 518 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 96#1,706 | Up 423 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 111#1,550 | Up 246 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 125#1,441 | Down 147 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 263#905 | Up 938 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 106#1,606 | Up 432 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 255#926 | Up 2,188 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 371#723 | Up 2,901 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 110#1,558 | Up 551 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 89#1,804 | Up 1,976 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 99#1,673 | Up 7,618 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 93#1,749 | Up 2,359 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 107#1,595 | new | 2025 |
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N names climbing fastest
Biggest N 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.