Forster
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Forster has been given to 38 babies in the U.S. since 1920. 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 1938, with 7 recorded.
Babies named Forster, 1947
1 in 720,000
Forster 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Forster?
Forster had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1947, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1947
- 1 in 720,000
- 5 of 3,602,100 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 366,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 1947
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 499,358 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Forster sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1947 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 499,358 children born in 1947 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Forster. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Forsters were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Forster was born before 1938 — so the typical Forster is around 87 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1940s
- 42.1% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 86.8%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 0
- People you could plausibly meet
1940s — 42.1% of all recorded uses (16).
Is Forster 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 1938 (7)
- Years since peak
- 87
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Not enough data
- Too few years
Spellings of Forster
Forster is not the most common spelling — Porter is, with 60.0% against Forster's 0.11%.
Where Forster is used
Across 1910–2025, Forster was most concentrated in Kentucky — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 597,456 across all states with data.
Most concentrated
- 1Kentucky1 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. Forster has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Forster by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Forster
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Forster
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.