Brave
#3,190 in 2025UnisexBoys' nameGirls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Brave has been given to 668 babies in the U.S. since 2008. In 2025 it ranked #3,190 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2022, with 54 recorded. It's used for both sexes: 76% boys, 24% girls all-time.
Babies named Brave, 2025
1 in 89,600
Brave over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
Girls or boys — Brave over time
In 2025, Brave went to 20% girls and 80% boys.
A sex is only published in years it reached five applications, so a stretch at 0% or 100% means the other side stayed under that floor — not that it was never used.
How common is Brave?
Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.
- Among all babies, 2025
- 1 in 89,600
- 37 of 3,315,165 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 46,200
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 2025
- #3,190
- of 13,926 boys’ names in use
- Coin-flip room size
- 62,106 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Brave sits on the popularity scale
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.
Put another way: gather 62,106 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Brave. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Braves were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Brave was born before 2020 — so the typical Brave is around 5 today.
- Biggest decade
- 2020s
- 55.9% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 100.0%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 508
- People you could plausibly meet
2020s — 55.9% of all recorded uses (284).
Is Brave 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
- +87
- Places climbed
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- −679
- Places dropped
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- +1,227
- Places climbed
- Births vs 10 years ago
- 1.68×
- More babies than then
- Share of its own peak
- 68.5%
- Peak was 2022 (54)
- Years since peak
- 3
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 35.1% average annual change
Spellings of Brave
Brave is not the most common spelling — Bruce is, with 34.6% against Brave's 0.05%.
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 Brave is used
Across 1910–2025, Brave was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 695,835 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1California1 in —
- 2Florida1 in —
- 3Pennsylvania1 in —
- 4Texas1 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. Brave has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Brave around the world
Where Brave 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.
- Canada2022–2022#2,335in 2022
- South Australia2011–2011#784in 2011
Popularity data from Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Brave by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
As a boy's name
Names similar to Brave
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Brave
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.