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Mortimer

Boys' name

Dead pond

Mortimer has been given to 1,943 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 1916, with 91 recorded.

Babies named Mortimer, 2023

1 in 663,000

Mortimer over time, 1880–2025

Boys
025507510018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Mortimer: meaning, origin, and history

Dead pond

surname transfer

What Mortimer means

Mortimer means “dead pond”.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

A habitational surname from Mortemer in France, from Old Northern French, literally meaning “dead pond”.

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Mortimer (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Mortimer is used in English. Its origins include surname transfer.

Mortimer is recorded as a surname transferred into given-name use.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Mortimer is pronounced /ˈmɔɹtəmɚ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,943 boys were recorded with the name Mortimer between 1880 and 2023. Its highest annual count was 91 in 1916; its best national rank was #481 in 1882.

How common is Mortimer?

Mortimer had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2023, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2023
1 in 663,000
5 of 3,314,783 births
Among boys only
1 in 342,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2023
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
459,528 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Mortimer 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 2023 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 459,528 children born in 2023 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Mortimer. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Mortimers were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Mortimer was born before 1920 — so the typical Mortimer is around 105 today.

Median birth year
1920
About 105 years old
Biggest decade
1910s
33.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
1.5%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
144
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1910s — 33.2% of all recorded uses (645).

Is Mortimer 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 1916 (91)
Years since peak
109
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
22.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#481
1882

Where Mortimer is used

Across 1910–2025, Mortimer was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in 16,667 boys, against 1 in 50,619 across all states with data. It was least common in Wisconsin (1 in —).

06 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in 16,667
  2. 2Connecticut1 in 100,000
  3. 3New Jersey1 in 100,000
  4. 4Illinois1 in —
  5. 5Massachusetts1 in —
  6. 6Pennsylvania1 in —
  7. 7Wisconsin1 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. Mortimer has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Mortimer around the world

Where Mortimer 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.

  • England & Wales
    1996–2019
    #4,702
    in 2019
  • Ireland
    1964–1980
    #288
    in 1980
  • France
    1981–1993
    #3,297
    in 1993

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Central Statistics Office and Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO data under CC BY 4.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Mortimer 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
#481
1882
Peak year
1916
91 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
2023
All-time count
1,943
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Mortimer

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

MorrisonMordecaiMordechaiMordcheMorrellMoroccoCasimerChalmerSamerMorgenMorleyKramerMordchaiMoritzDelmerMordchaMoroniPalmerMordekaiTamerGilmerMorrieAmerMorton

Sibling names for Mortimer

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 Mortimer

Top names of 1916, Mortimer's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1882Boys' names starting with MCharles Dickens Names