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Priest

#4,351 in 2025Boys' name

From Latin Praejectus; literal meaning unconfirmed

Priest has been given to 561 babies in the U.S. since 1971. In 2025 it ranked #4,351 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2019, with 50 recorded.

Babies named Priest, 2025

1 in 138,000

Priest over time, 1880–2025

Boys
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Priest: meaning, origin, and history

From Latin Praejectus; literal meaning unconfirmed

Franco-Provençal

What Priest means

Priest is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Priest is used in French. Its origins include Franco-Provençal.

Priest comes through Latin Praejectus.

Pronunciation and spelling

In French, Priest is pronounced /pʁi/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 561 boys were recorded with the name Priest between 1971 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 50 in 2019; its best national rank was #1,424 in 1973.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #3,016 in 2020 to #4,351 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.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Priest?

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

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 138,000
24 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 71,200
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#4,351
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
95,747 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Priest 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 95,747 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Priest. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Priests were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Priest was born before 2014 — so the typical Priest is around 11 today.

Median birth year
2014
About 11 years old
Biggest decade
2020s
33.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
78.4%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
561
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2020s — 33.9% of all recorded uses (190).

Is Priest 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
−191
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
−1,335
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
48.0%
Peak was 2019 (50)
Years since peak
6
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
44.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,424
1973

Spellings of Priest

Priest is not the most common spelling — Ernest is, with 98.0% against Priest's 0.18%.

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 Priest is used

Across 1910–2025, Priest was most concentrated in Illinois — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 757,694 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Illinois1 in —
  2. 2Michigan1 in —
  3. 3Ohio1 in —
  4. 4Texas1 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. Priest has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Priest by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#4,351
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 1,335
Best rank ever
#1,424
1973
Peak year
2019
50 that year
First recorded
1971
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
561
Count in 2025
24

Names similar to Priest

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

PrithviPrimoHonestPrimusPrishOrestPriyanshPriamQuestHarvestPricePrincestonEverestPrincePriyanPrimitivoPridePrincetynPriyamDeforestPriteshPriscillaPrinstonPrintis

Sibling names for Priest

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 Priest

Top names of 2019, Priest's peak yearThe 2010s in fullOther names that peaked in 1973Boys' names starting with P