Name Awesome

Flem

Boys' name

Literal meaning not recorded

Flem has been given to 244 babies in the U.S. since 1880. 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 1927, with 16 recorded.

Babies named Flem, 1957

1 in 467,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Flem: meaning, origin, and history

Literal meaning not recorded

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Flem means

Flem is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Flem is used in English.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 244 boys were recorded with the name Flem between 1880 and 1957. Its highest annual count was 16 in 1927; its best national rank was #704 in 1880.

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 Flem?

Flem had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1957, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1957
1 in 467,000
9 of 4,201,368 births
Among boys only
1 in 240,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 1957
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
323,575 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Flem 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 1957 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 323,575 children born in 1957 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Flem. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Flems were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Flem was born before 1926 — so the typical Flem is around 99 today.

Median birth year
1926
About 99 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
35.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
27.5%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
20
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 35.2% of all recorded uses (86).

Is Flem 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 1927 (16)
Years since peak
98
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
40.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#704
1880

Spellings of Flem

Flem is not the most common spelling — Fred is, with 25.0% against Flem's 0.02%.

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 Flem is used

Across 1910–2025, Flem was most concentrated in Kentucky — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 186,705 across all states with data.

11 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Kentucky1 in 100,000

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

Flem 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
#704
1880
Peak year
1927
16 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
1957
All-time count
244
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Flem

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

AlemFleetCalemKaylemKaelemKalemFlemonFlexShulemMeshilemLemFlemingSalemWillemClemHarlemJerusalemSholemFleetwoodSilemMeshulemFlemmingCaylemJalem

Sibling names for Flem

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 Flem

Top names of 1927, Flem's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1880Boys' names starting with F