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Nereo

Boys' name

From Ancient Greek Νηρεύς; literal meaning unconfirmed

Nereo has been given to 21 babies in the U.S. since 1987. 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 1999, with 6 recorded.

Babies named Nereo, 2002

1 in 747,000

Nereo over time, 1880–2025

Boys
024618801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Nereo: meaning, origin, and history

From Ancient Greek Νηρεύς; literal meaning unconfirmed

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Nereo means

Nereo is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Nereo is used in Italian.

Nereo comes through Ancient Greek Νηρεύς.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 21 boys were recorded with the name Nereo between 1987 and 2002. Its highest annual count was 6 in 1999; its best national rank was #7,775 in 1987.

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 Nereo?

Nereo had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2002, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2002
1 in 747,000
5 of 3,737,275 births
Among boys only
1 in 388,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2002
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
518,097 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Nereo 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 2002 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 518,097 children born in 2002 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Nereo. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Nereos were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Nereo was born before 1999 — so the typical Nereo is around 26 today.

Median birth year
1999
About 26 years old
Biggest decade
1990s
52.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
21
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1990s — 52.4% of all recorded uses (11).

Is Nereo 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 1999 (6)
Years since peak
26
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Not enough data
Too few years
Best rank ever
#7,775
1987

Spellings of Nereo

Nereo is not the most common spelling — Derek is, with 87.7% against Nereo'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 Nereo is used

Across 1910–2025, Nereo was most concentrated in Texas — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 2,652,691 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Texas1 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. Nereo has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Nereo around the world

Where Nereo 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
    2021–2022
    #5,778
    in 2022

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Nereo 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
#7,775
1987
Peak year
1999
6 that year
First recorded
1987
Last recorded
2002
All-time count
21
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Nereo

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

NerielNericNerikNeronNeriahNerminNerickNerisJareoNersesCreoAndreoMarreoAureoAtreoNeroNereidaNeriDemareoMareoKreoNeryJamareoCesareo

Sibling names for Nereo

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 Nereo

Top names of 1999, Nereo's peak yearThe 1990s in fullOther names that peaked in 1987Boys' names starting with N