Name Awesome

Newman

Boys' name

Transferred from a surname; no fixed literal translation

Newman has been given to 1,896 babies in the U.S. since 1882. 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 1921, with 67 recorded.

Babies named Newman, 2024

1 in 669,000

Newman over time, 1880–2025

Boys
02040608018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Newman: meaning, origin, and history

Transferred from a surname; no fixed literal translation

surname transfer

What Newman means

Newman is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

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

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

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Newman is pronounced /ˈnumən/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,896 boys were recorded with the name Newman between 1882 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 67 in 1921; its best national rank was #595 in 1895.

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 Newman?

Newman had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2024, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2024
1 in 669,000
5 of 3,342,801 births
Among boys only
1 in 345,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
463,412 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Newman 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 2024 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 463,412 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Newman. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Newmans were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Newman was born before 1930 — so the typical Newman is around 95 today.

Median birth year
1930
About 95 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
23.3% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
3.5%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
511
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 23.3% of all recorded uses (442).

Is Newman 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 1921 (67)
Years since peak
104
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
19.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#595
1895

Spellings of Newman

Newman is not the most common spelling — Norman is, with 59.7% against Newman's 0.45%.

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 Newman is used

Across 1910–2025, Newman was most concentrated in Alabama — about 1 in 50,000 boys, against 1 in 173,075 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

02 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Alabama1 in 50,000
  2. 2Louisiana1 in 50,000
  3. 3Georgia1 in 100,000
  4. 4Kentucky1 in 100,000
  5. 5Oklahoma1 in 100,000
  6. 6West Virginia1 in 100,000
  7. 7North Carolina1 in —
  8. 8Tennessee1 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. Newman has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Newman around the world

Where Newman 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
    2000–2010
    #6,033
    in 2010
  • South Australia
    1951–1988
    #476
    in 1988

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.

Newman 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
#595
1895
Peak year
1921
67 that year
First recorded
1882
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
1,896
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Newman

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

NewtonSalmanFermanRahmanKalmanLuqmanNewellHarmanColmanBowmanCaymanUsmanSolomanZalmanNewtAymanDormanOthmanChapmanTillmanOsmanWhitmanSulaimanRodman

Sibling names for Newman

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 Newman

Top names of 1921, Newman's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1895Boys' names starting with N