Gus

About Gus

Gus is a short name with several longer histories behind it. In English it can be a familiar form of Augustus or Angus; among Greek expatriates it is also used for Konstantinos. Its meaning therefore depends on the name from which it developed. It is also recorded as a complete first name.

Names behind the nickname

Augustus is Latin and means “exalted” or “venerable.” It became an imperial title in ancient Rome. Angus is an anglicized form of Aonghus, whose older Irish elements are usually interpreted as “one” and “strength,” although that derivation is not entirely certain.

Greek Konstantinos belongs to the Constantine family. Its connection with Gus represents a different nickname tradition from the English Augustus and Angus forms. A person called Gus need not have either of those English parent names.

English Gus is one syllable, pronounced to rhyme with bus. Augie is another familiar form in the Augustus family, while Angus preserves a different first syllable despite containing the same final sound as Gus.

Gus Grissom

Astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom gives the short form a significant place in American spaceflight. Selected among NASA's original seven Mercury astronauts in April 1959, he piloted the Liberty Bell 7 mission in July 1961. It was the second and final suborbital flight of the Mercury program.

On March 23, 1965, Grissom served as command pilot of Gemini III, with John Young as pilot. This was the first crewed Gemini mission, a three-orbit flight that tested the spacecraft's maneuvering abilities.

The crew changed their orbit using the spacecraft's thrusters. Grissom nicknamed the capsule Molly Brown, a reference to The Unsinkable Molly Brown and to his earlier experience with Liberty Bell 7, which sank after landing. His public name illustrates how a nickname can become much more familiar than the formal first name behind it.

Gus Van Sant

Filmmaker Gus Van Sant provides another well-known association. His film Elephant received the Palme d'Or at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, and he also won the festival's directing award for it.

The film follows students through what initially appears to be an ordinary day at an American high school. Van Sant wrote, directed, and edited the film. Its two Cannes honors recognize both the work as a whole and his direction.

The spaceflight and film connections belong to very different public careers, but both made the compact name Gus familiar beyond the circles in which a childhood nickname might ordinarily remain.

American popularity

Gus's largest recorded American birth count for boys came in 1921, with 327 births and a rank of No. 324. It was recorded for 42 boys in 2000 and 133 in 2010.

In 2025, 145 boys received Gus as their recorded name, ranked No. 1,331. These figures track the short form itself, alongside the larger families of names for which it can serve as a nickname.

How popular is Gus?

In 2025, Gus ranked #1,331 among boys in the United States, with 145 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for boys in 1880; its largest annual count was 327 in 1921. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.