Name Awesome

Branko

Boys' name

To defend

Branko has been given to 85 babies in the U.S. since 1961. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1975, with 11 recorded.

Babies named Branko, 2024

1 in 371,000

Branko over time, 1880–2025

Boys
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Branko: meaning, origin, and history

To defend

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Branko means

Branko means “to defend”, associated with brániti.

Origin, language, and formation

Branko is used in Serbo-Croatian.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Serbo-Croatian, Branko is pronounced /brâːnko/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 85 boys were recorded with the name Branko between 1961 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 11 in 1975; its best national rank was #3,270 in 1975.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Branko?

Branko had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2024, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2024
1 in 371,000
9 of 3,342,801 births
Among boys only
1 in 191,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
257,451 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Branko 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 2024 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 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 257,451 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Branko. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Brankos were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Branko was born before 1978 — so the typical Branko is around 47 today.

Median birth year
1978
About 47 years old
Biggest decade
1970s
38.8% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
42.4%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
85
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1970s — 38.8% of all recorded uses (33).

Is Branko 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
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1975 (11)
Years since peak
50
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
18.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#3,270
1975

Spellings of Branko

Branko is not the most common spelling — Frank is, with 52.1% against Branko's <0.01%.

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 Branko is used

Across 1910–2025, Branko was most concentrated in Illinois — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 1,706,895 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Illinois1 in —

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. Branko has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Branko around the world

Where Branko 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.

  • France
    1959–1981
    #2,548
    in 1981
  • South Australia
    1951–2000
    #556
    in 2000

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Branko by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#3,270
1975
Peak year
1975
11 that year
First recorded
1961
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
85
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Branko

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

BrazilBraxenBrahimBraxleeBrazenBrayzenBrayamBracenBraveryBrazosBraylnBralinBraxonBraxsonBraesonBralonBrayenBraxleyBrasonBralynBraedyBraelenBraisonBrandis

Sibling names for Branko

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 Branko

Top names of 1975, Branko's peak yearThe 1970s in fullOther names that peaked in 1975Boys' names starting with BCroatian & Serbian Boy Names