Cougar

Boys' name

Meaning not yet documented

Cougar has been given to 206 babies in the U.S. since 1987. 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 2007, with 17 recorded.

Babies named Cougar, 2011

1 in 610,000

Cougar over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

How common is Cougar?

Cougar had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2011, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2011
1 in 610,000
6 of 3,657,935 births
Among boys only
1 in 317,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2011
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
422,582 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Cougar 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 2011 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 422,582 children born in 2011 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Cougar. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Cougars were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Cougar was born before 2003 — so the typical Cougar is around 22 today.

Median birth year
2003
About 22 years old
Biggest decade
2000s
60.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
206
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2000s — 60.7% of all recorded uses (125).

Is Cougar 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 2007 (17)
Years since peak
18
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
40.0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#5,005
1997

Spellings of Cougar

Cougar is not the most common spelling — Oumar is, with 47.4% against Cougar's 12.8%.

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.

Cougar around the world

Where Cougar 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.

  • South Australia
    1990–2011
    #784
    in 2011

Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Cougar 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
#5,005
1997
Peak year
2007
17 that year
First recorded
1987
Last recorded
2011
All-time count
206
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Cougar

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

Sibling names for Cougar

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 Cougar