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Bear

#853 in 2025Boys' name

Possibly brown

Bear has been given to 3,356 babies in the U.S. since 1975. In 2025 it ranked #853 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2022, with 332 recorded.

Babies named Bear, 2025

1 in 11,600

Bear over time, 1880–2025

Boys
010020030040018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Bear: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly brown

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Bear means

Bear may mean “brown”.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

* As an English surname, related to bear * As a German surname, spelling variant of Baer and Bahr

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Bear (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Bear is used in English.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Baer.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 3,356 boys were recorded with the name Bear between 1975 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 332 in 2022; its best national rank was #760 in 2022.

Over 5 years its rank rose, from #900 in 2020 to #853 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank rose, from #1,320 in 2015 to #853 in 2025.

How common is Bear?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 11,600
286 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 5,970
0.02% of boys
Rank, 2025
#853
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
8,036 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Bear sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 5004%

Put another way: gather 8,036 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Bear. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Bears were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Bear was born before 2020 — so the typical Bear is around 5 today.

Median birth year
2020
About 5 years old
Biggest decade
2020s
52.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
99.2%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
3,356
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2020s — 52.4% of all recorded uses (1,757).

Is Bear rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
−27
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
+47
Places climbed
Rank vs 10 years ago
+467
Places climbed
Births vs 10 years ago
2.13×
More babies than then
Share of its own peak
86.1%
Peak was 2022 (332)
Years since peak
3
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
29.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#760
2022

Spellings of Bear

Bear is not the most common spelling — Sean is, with 27.2% against Bear's 0.22%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Bear is used

Across 2016–2025, Bear was most concentrated in Colorado — about 1 in 2,564 boys, against 1 in 7,043 across all states with data. It was least common in New Jersey (1 in 100,000).

139 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Colorado1 in 2,564
  2. 2Oklahoma1 in 2,703
  3. 3Utah1 in 3,030
  4. 4Arkansas1 in 3,226
  5. 5Oregon1 in 3,226
  6. 6Washington1 in 4,000
  7. 7Tennessee1 in 4,762
  8. 8Arizona1 in 5,000

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings.

Geographically, Bear is somewhat regional — more concentrated than 69% of the names used widely enough to compare. See the most regional names

Bear around the world

Where Bear ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    2007–2025
    #360
    in 2025
  • Scotland
    2018–2025
    #441
    in 2025
  • Northern Ireland
    2021–2021
    #326
    in 2021
  • Ireland
    2016–2025
    #676
    in 2025
  • Canada
    2015–2024
    #886
    in 2024

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, Central Statistics Office and Statistics Canada. ONS, NRS, NISRA data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO data under CC BY 4.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Bear

People whose public names include Bear, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Bear in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Bear. Linked forms have their own page here.

BeornBjornBjörnBjørn

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Bear by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#853
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Up 47
Best rank ever
#760
2022
Peak year
2022
332 that year
First recorded
1975
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
3,356
Count in 2025
286

Names similar to Bear

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

BeauxBeauBeaudenBearettBearlBeaumontBeaufordNyyearBeatriceBeaconBeauregardBeaumanBeauenBearonBealBeaudryLearIzearAmearBeaudiJamearBeacherBeamonBeatriz

Names with a curve like Bear

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Bear, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

WestynWessonJaxxonEzrahNovaKarsynKaisenEverestKaiserKhaiLevMatheo

Sibling names for Bear

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Bear

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