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Loan

UnisexGirls' nameBoys' name

Multiple documented origins; meaning depends on tradition

Loan has been given to 458 babies in the U.S. since 1976. 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 1982, with 41 recorded. It's used for both sexes: 93% girls, 7% boys all-time.

Babies named Loan, 2000

1 in 756,000

Loan over time, 1880–2025

GirlsBoys
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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

In 2025, Loan went to 0% girls and 100% boys.

19762025

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.

Loan: meaning, origin, and history

Multiple documented origins; meaning depends on tradition

Chinese

What Loan means

Loan has more than one naming route in the cited origin entries: distinct naming traditions.

The naming story behind Loan

A separate documented entry treats Loan as a variant of Elouan. That is a personal-name relationship, which differs from translating the letters of the modern spelling into one universal English word. The linked origin entry identifies the context of this relationship.

Origin, language, and formation

Loan is used in Vietnamese. Its origins include Chinese.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Vietnamese, Loan is pronounced [lwaːn˧˧].

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 426 girls were recorded with the name Loan between 1976 and 2000. Its highest annual count was 41 in 1982; its best national rank was #2,399 in 1982.

In the United States, 32 boys were recorded with the name Loan between 2023 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 14 in 2025; its best national rank was #6,311 in 2025.

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 Loan?

Loan had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2000, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2000
1 in 756,000
5 of 3,778,496 births
Among girls only
1 in 363,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2000
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
523,812 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Loan sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2000 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 523,812 children born in 2000 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Loan. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Loans were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Loan was born before 1984 — so the typical Loan is around 41 today.

Median birth year
1984
About 41 years old
Biggest decade
1980s
62.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
426
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1980s — 62.9% of all recorded uses (268).

Is Loan 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 1982 (41)
Years since peak
43
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
39.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,399
1982

Spellings of Loan

Loan is not the most common spelling — Joan is, with 16.0% against Loan's 0.01%.

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 Loan is used

Across 1910–2025, Loan was most concentrated in California — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 293,063 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in 100,000
  2. 2Louisiana1 in —
  3. 3Massachusetts1 in —
  4. 4Texas1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls 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. Loan has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Loan around the world

Where Loan 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.

  • France
    1979–2025
    #4,384
    in 2025
  • South Australia
    1981–1994
    #467
    in 1994

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Loan by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#2,399
1982
Peak year
1982
41 that year
First recorded
1976
Last recorded
2000
All-time count
426
Count in 2025
Under 5

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#6,311
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
New entry
Best rank ever
#6,311
2025
Peak year
2025
14 that year
First recorded
2023
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
32
Count in 2025
14

Names similar to Loan

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

LoaRoanLoahLoanyLoannLoanaLoanneSloanLoannaDoanIoanLoammiLoannySamoanMaryjoanLoarineJoan

Sibling names for Loan

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 Loan

Top names of 1982, Loan's peak yearThe 1980s in fullOther names that peaked in 1982Girls' names starting with LVietnamese Girl Names