Name Awesome

Octave

Boys' name

Form of Octavius

Octave has been given to 450 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 1918, with 18 recorded.

Babies named Octave, 2024

1 in 557,000

Octave over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Octave: meaning, origin, and history

Form of Octavius

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Octave means

Octave is a form of Octavius.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Octave is used in French.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ɔk.tav/ for Octave.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Octave → Octavius. The family’s meaning is “eighth”, recorded in the naming reference for Octavius.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Octavius.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 450 boys were recorded with the name Octave between 1880 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 18 in 1918; its best national rank was #628 in 1885.

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.

How common is Octave?

Octave 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 557,000
6 of 3,342,801 births
Among boys only
1 in 287,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
386,177 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Octave 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 386,177 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Octave. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Octaves were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Octave was born before 1923 — so the typical Octave is around 102 today.

Median birth year
1923
About 102 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
21.6% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
1.3%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
42
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 21.6% of all recorded uses (97).

Is Octave 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 1918 (18)
Years since peak
107
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
26.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#628
1885

Spellings of Octave

Octave is not the most common spelling — Octavio is, with 96.2% against Octave's 3.8%.

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 Octave is used

Across 1910–2025, Octave was most concentrated in Louisiana — about 1 in 20,000 boys, against 1 in 21,105 across all states with data.

55 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Louisiana1 in 20,000

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

Octave around the world

Where Octave 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
    2016–2023
    #4,992
    in 2023
  • France
    1900–2025
    #135
    in 2025
  • Canada
    2010–2024
    #2,550
    in 2024

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

Octave 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
#628
1885
Peak year
1918
18 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
450
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Octave

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

BraveOctoberOctavionOctavisCleaveOctavianOctaviaOctaviousOctaviusOctavianoOctavioWaveGustaveSteaveSuaveOctavienOctabioBernaveOctavusMojaveDaveJave

Sibling names for Octave

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 Octave

Top names of 1918, Octave's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1885Boys' names starting with O