Slate
#2,712 in 2025Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Slate has been given to 863 babies in the U.S. since 1990. In 2025 it ranked #2,712 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2018, with 56 recorded.
Babies named Slate, 2025
1 in 69,100
Slate 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Slate?
Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.
- Among all babies, 2025
- 1 in 69,100
- 48 of 3,315,165 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 35,600
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 2025
- #2,712
- of 13,926 boys’ names in use
- Coin-flip room size
- 47,874 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Slate sits on the popularity scale
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.
Put another way: gather 47,874 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Slate. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Slates were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Slate was born before 2016 — so the typical Slate is around 9 today.
- Biggest decade
- 2010s
- 43.9% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 91.8%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 863
- People you could plausibly meet
2010s — 43.9% of all recorded uses (379).
Is Slate 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
- +673
- Places climbed
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- +205
- Places climbed
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- +642
- Places climbed
- Births vs 10 years ago
- 1.41×
- More babies than then
- Share of its own peak
- 85.7%
- Peak was 2018 (56)
- Years since peak
- 7
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 23.1% average annual change
Spellings of Slate
Slate is not the most common spelling — Shane is, with 37.6% against Slate's 0.17%.
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 Slate is used
Across 1910–2025, Slate was most concentrated in Texas — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 438,878 across all states with data. It was least common in Tennessee (1 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. Slate has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Slate around the world
Where Slate 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.
- South Australia2011–2011#784in 2011
Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Slate by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Slate
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Slate
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.