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Ruffin

Boys' name

Meaning unconfirmed; recorded in an 1884 name reference

Ruffin has been given to 560 babies in the U.S. since 1886. 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 1916, with 19 recorded.

Babies named Ruffin, 2024

1 in 669,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Ruffin: meaning, origin, and history

Meaning unconfirmed; recorded in an 1884 name reference

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Ruffin means

Ruffin is a given name.

The naming story behind Ruffin

Charlotte M. Yonge’s 1884 History of Christian Names includes the exact spelling Ruffin in its glossary. The entry labels it masculine and points to printed page(s) 167.

The glossary’s abbreviated description reads: “Fr. Lat. red”. This is the historical author’s wording, including its language abbreviations and any proposed interpretation. It is presented as historical evidence, not as a verified modern translation. Victorian classifications and root explanations can differ from later linguistic research.

For Ruffin, the current short meaning therefore remains unconfirmed. Establishing its modern etymology requires a current reference that documents the exact form and its relationship to the proposed earlier words.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 560 boys were recorded with the name Ruffin between 1886 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 19 in 1916; its best national rank was #947 in 1886.

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 Ruffin?

Ruffin 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 669,000
5 of 3,342,801 births
Among boys only
1 in 345,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
463,412 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Ruffin 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 463,412 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Ruffin. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Ruffins were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Ruffin was born before 1940 — so the typical Ruffin is around 85 today.

Median birth year
1940
About 85 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
22.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
4.8%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
178
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 22.9% of all recorded uses (128).

Is Ruffin 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 1916 (19)
Years since peak
109
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
12.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#947
1886

Spellings of Ruffin

Ruffin is not the most common spelling — Griffin is, with 77.5% against Ruffin's 0.85%.

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 Ruffin is used

Across 1910–2025, Ruffin was most concentrated in Louisiana — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 86,009 across all states with data. It was least common in North Carolina (1 in 100,000).

11 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Louisiana1 in 100,000
  2. 2North Carolina1 in 100,000

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

Ruffin around the world

Where Ruffin 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.

  • France
    1901–1969
    #1,771
    in 1969

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Ruffin 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
#947
1886
Peak year
1916
19 that year
First recorded
1886
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
560
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Ruffin

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

RuffusRufinoGryffinSerafinDelfinRufordRufaelFinShafinRufusRufasTashfinWoodfinRufioRufeSteffinStefinGriffinRufesSafinGrifinRuff

Sibling names for Ruffin

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 Ruffin

Top names of 1916, Ruffin's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1886Boys' names starting with R