Name Awesome

Papa

#13,388 in 2025Boys' name

Earth

Papa has been given to 263 babies in the U.S. since 1993. In 2025 it ranked #13,388 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2003, with 14 recorded.

Babies named Papa, 2025

1 in 663,000

Papa over time, 1880–2025

Boys
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Papa: meaning, origin, and history

Earth

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Papa means

Papa means “earth”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Papa is used in Polynesian Mythology.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 263 boys were recorded with the name Papa between 1993 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 14 in 2003; its best national rank was #5,468 in 2003.

Over 10 years its rank fell, from #7,401 in 2015 to #13,388 in 2025.

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 Papa?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 663,000
5 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 342,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#13,388
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
459,581 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Papa 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 2025 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 459,581 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Papa. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Papas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Papa was born before 2008 — so the typical Papa is around 17 today.

Median birth year
2008
About 17 years old
Biggest decade
2000s
42.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
83.3%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
263
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2000s — 42.2% of all recorded uses (111).

Is Papa 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
−5,768
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
−5,987
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.45×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
35.7%
Peak was 2003 (14)
Years since peak
22
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
23.9% average annual change
Best rank ever
#5,468
2003

Spellings of Papa

Papa is not the most common spelling — Paul is, with 92.1% against Papa's 0.02%.

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 Papa is used

Across 1910–2025, Papa was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 634,469 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 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. Papa has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Papa around the world

Where Papa 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
    1997–2025
    #4,275
    in 2025
  • France
    1962–2025
    #3,408
    in 2025
  • Canada
    2008–2024
    #2,328
    in 2024
  • South Australia
    1992–1992
    #538
    in 1992

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.

Papa by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#13,388
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
New entry
Best rank ever
#5,468
2003
Peak year
2003
14 that year
First recorded
1993
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
263
Count in 2025
5

Names similar to Papa

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

PapePapi

Sibling names for Papa

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 Papa

Top names of 2003, Papa's peak yearThe 2000s in fullOther names that peaked in 2003Boys' names starting with P