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Paw

Girls' name

Literal meaning not recorded

Paw has been given to 255 babies in the U.S. since 2008. 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 2016, with 26 recorded.

Babies named Paw, 2024

1 in 279,000

Paw over time, 1880–2025

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Paw: meaning, origin, and history

Literal meaning not recorded

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Paw means

Paw is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Paw is used in Danish and Sakizaya.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Sakizaya, Paw is pronounced /paw/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 255 girls were recorded with the name Paw between 2008 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 26 in 2016; its best national rank was #5,248 in 2016.

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 Paw?

Paw 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 279,000
12 of 3,342,801 births
Among girls only
1 in 135,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
193,089 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Paw sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

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 193,089 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Paw. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Paws were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Paw was born before 2015 — so the typical Paw is around 10 today.

Median birth year
2015
About 10 years old
Biggest decade
2010s
71.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
255
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2010s — 71.0% of all recorded uses (181).

Is Paw 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 2016 (26)
Years since peak
9
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
31.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#5,248
2016

Where Paw is used

Across 1910–2025, Paw was most concentrated in Minnesota — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 128,769 across all states with data.

11 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Minnesota1 in 100,000

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls 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. Paw has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Paw by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#5,248
2016
Peak year
2016
26 that year
First recorded
2008
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
255
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Paw

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

Pawnee

Sibling names for Paw

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 Paw

Top names of 2016, Paw's peak yearThe 2010s in fullOther names that peaked in 2016Girls' names starting with P