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Narayan

Boys' name

A particular medicinal powder, through नारायण

Narayan has been given to 273 babies in the U.S. since 1973. 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 2014, with 21 recorded.

Babies named Narayan, 2022

1 in 484,000

Narayan over time, 1880–2025

Boys
010203018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Narayan: meaning, origin, and history

A particular medicinal powder, through नारायण

Sanskrit

What Narayan means

Narayan belongs to the name family reached through Narayan → नारायण → नारायण. Its meaning is “a particular medicinal powder”.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

Borrowed from Hindi नारायण (nārāyaṇ), from Sanskrit नारायण (nārāyaṇá). Doublet of Narayana.

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

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Narayan is used in English. Its origins include Sanskrit.

Narayan comes through Hindi नारायण and Sanskrit नारायण.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Narayana and नारायण.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 273 boys were recorded with the name Narayan between 1973 and 2022. Its highest annual count was 21 in 2014; its best national rank was #4,647 in 2014.

How common is Narayan?

Narayan had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2022, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2022
1 in 484,000
7 of 3,385,755 births
Among boys only
1 in 249,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2022
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
335,262 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Narayan 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 2022 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 335,262 children born in 2022 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Narayan. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Narayans were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Narayan was born before 2011 — so the typical Narayan is around 14 today.

Median birth year
2011
About 14 years old
Biggest decade
2010s
48.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
85.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
273
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2010s — 48.4% of all recorded uses (132).

Is Narayan 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 2014 (21)
Years since peak
11
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
31.0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#4,647
2014

Spellings of Narayan

Narayan is not the most common spelling — Brayan is, with 40.1% against Narayan's 0.66%.

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 Narayan is used

Across 1910–2025, Narayan was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 3,486,540 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 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. Narayan has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Narayan around the world

Where Narayan 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
    1996–2025
    #2,269
    in 2025
  • France
    1992–2012
    #3,951
    in 2012
  • Canada
    1992–2023
    #3,103
    in 2023
  • South Australia
    1986–2012
    #771
    in 2012

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Narayan 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
#4,647
2014
Peak year
2014
21 that year
First recorded
1973
Last recorded
2022
All-time count
273
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Narayan

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

NaryanSufiyanShriyanNarcisoShreyanZaryanKaiyanPrayanBanyanNaradaRaiyanSriyanDamyanKalyanNarekJulyanZaviyanAavyanZayyanPragyanAliyanNarvelSaiyanDaryan

Sibling names for Narayan

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 Narayan

Top names of 2014, Narayan's peak yearThe 2010s in fullOther names that peaked in 2014Boys' names starting with N