Boy Names That Start With W
Boys' names beginning with W, 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
- 3.1%
- vs 1.8% in 2000
- Names in use
- 214
- 647 recorded since 1880
- Letter peaked
- 1881
- at 12.6% of names
- Rank among 26 letters
- #14
- by 2025 share
How W has fared since 1880
Share of all listed U.S. births given a name starting with W, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,545#9 | Down 4 rank positions in five years | 1947 | |||
| 1,381#252 | Up 20 rank positions in five years | 1918 | |||
| 147#1,322 | Down 327 rank positions in five years | 1947 | |||
| 422#655 | Up 120 rank positions in five years | 1947 | |||
| 5,578#52 | Up 46 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 6,480#38 | Down 9 rank positions in five years | 2017 | |||
| 1,471#240 | Up 103 rank positions in five years | 1921 | |||
| 241#964 | Down 45 rank positions in five years | 1923 | |||
| 948#344 | Down 3 rank positions in five years | 1970 | |||
| 5,482#55 | Up 49 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 5,408#56 | Up 47 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 67#2,165 | Down 53 rank positions in five years | 1940 | |||
| 52#2,567 | Down 333 rank positions in five years | 1924 | |||
| 405#673 | Down 17 rank positions in five years | 1918 | |||
| 4,204#78 | Up 128 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 170#1,195 | Down 254 rank positions in five years | 1888 | |||
| 102#1,653 | Up 62 rank positions in five years | 1918 | |||
| 830#382 | Up 26 rank positions in five years | 2019 | |||
| 165#1,226 | Down 61 rank positions in five years | 1921 | |||
| 94#1,742 | Up 193 rank positions in five years | 1920 | |||
| 453#619 | Up 128 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 137#1,365 | Up 131 rank positions in five years | 1921 | |||
| 743#431 | Down 4 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 396#689 | Up 87 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 944#347 | Up 199 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 376#716 | Up 275 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 224#1,011 | Down 408 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 175#1,182 | Up 648 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 56#2,449 | Up 433 rank positions in five years | 1922 | |||
| 61#2,301 | Up 1,502 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 159#1,255 | Up 592 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 115#1,519 | Down 167 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 257#919 | Down 67 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 371#724 | Up 582 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 95#1,726 | Up 481 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 289#849 | Up 677 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 407#671 | Up 543 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 198#1,090 | Up 153 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 162#1,239 | Up 609 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 83#1,902 | Down 73 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 56#2,450 | Up 1,354 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 79#1,958 | Up 882 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 56#2,448 | Up 55 rank positions in five years | 2016 | |||
| 160#1,251 | Up 1,668 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 77#1,990 | Up 554 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 66#2,181 | Up 433 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 88#1,823 | Up 1,309 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 121#1,476 | Up 1,444 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 51#2,598 | Up 4,410 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 57#2,419 | Up 5,047 rank positions in five years | 2025 |
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W names climbing fastest
Biggest W 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.