Ruff
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Ruff has been given to 5 babies in the U.S. since 1926. 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 1926, with 5 recorded.
Babies named Ruff, 1926
1 in 459,000
Ruff over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Ruff?
Ruff had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1926, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1926
- 1 in 459,000
- 5 of 2,295,839 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 222,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 1926
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 318,272 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Ruff sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1926 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 318,272 children born in 1926 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Ruff. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Ruffs were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Ruff was born before 1926 — so the typical Ruff is around 99 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1920s
- 100.0% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 100.0%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 0
- People you could plausibly meet
1920s — 100.0% of all recorded uses (5).
Is Ruff 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 1926 (5)
- Years since peak
- 99
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Not enough data
- Too few years
Spellings of Ruff
Ruff is not the most common spelling — Jeff is, with 50.3% against Ruff's <0.01%.
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.
Ruff by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Ruff
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Ruff
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.