Boy Names That Start With Z
Boys' names beginning with Z, 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
- 1.6%
- vs 1.6% in 2000
- Names in use
- 448
- 1,050 recorded since 1880
- Letter peaked
- 1994
- at 1.7% of names
- Rank among 26 letters
- #19
- by 2025 share
How Z has fared since 1880
Share of all listed U.S. births given a name starting with Z, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,646#216 | Down 81 rank positions in five years | 1993 | |||
| 1,051#324 | Down 66 rank positions in five years | 2018 | |||
| 2,496#142 | Up 1 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 1,657#214 | Down 29 rank positions in five years | 2014 | |||
| 116#1,513 | Down 395 rank positions in five years | 2001 | |||
| 558#538 | Down 16 rank positions in five years | 1992 | |||
| 804#397 | Down 116 rank positions in five years | 2013 | |||
| 1,381#253 | Up 59 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 644#473 | Down 79 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 466#609 | Down 98 rank positions in five years | 2013 | |||
| 285#856 | Up 71 rank positions in five years | 2015 | |||
| 522#567 | Up 7 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 601#503 | Up 25 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 126#1,435 | Down 128 rank positions in five years | 2008 | |||
| 1,077#317 | Up 127 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 311#803 | Down 128 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 402#677 | Down 8 rank positions in five years | 2018 | |||
| 214#1,037 | Down 146 rank positions in five years | 2010 | |||
| 277#866 | Up 35 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 442#633 | Up 147 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 356#738 | Up 152 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 249#947 | Up 176 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 327#780 | Up 246 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 528#563 | Up 341 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 123#1,458 | Down 61 rank positions in five years | 2019 | |||
| 340#759 | Up 205 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 114#1,528 | Up 71 rank positions in five years | 2017 | |||
| 185#1,144 | Up 55 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 140#1,351 | Down 151 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 202#1,072 | Up 426 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 169#1,203 | Up 67 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 189#1,130 | Up 266 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 206#1,062 | Up 79 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 169#1,202 | Down 73 rank positions in five years | 2020 | |||
| 221#1,017 | Up 83 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 110#1,563 | Down 156 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 249#946 | Up 542 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 95#1,727 | Up 484 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 112#1,546 | Up 231 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 105#1,620 | Up 402 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 123#1,457 | Up 285 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 134#1,380 | Up 881 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 117#1,508 | Down 21 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 119#1,491 | Down 118 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 92#1,770 | Up 1,645 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 134#1,381 | Up 1,957 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 107#1,601 | Up 1,055 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 85#1,865 | Up 892 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 99#1,676 | Up 1,737 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 141#1,346 | Up 10,638 rank positions in five years | 2025 |
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Z names climbing fastest
Biggest Z 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.