Tab
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Tab has been given to 1,110 babies in the U.S. since 1953. 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 1957, with 120 recorded.
Babies named Tab, 2015
1 in 740,000
Tab 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Tab?
Tab had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2015, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2015
- 1 in 740,000
- 5 of 3,701,574 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 383,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 2015
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 513,148 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Tab sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2015 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 513,148 children born in 2015 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Tab. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Tabs were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Tab was born before 1962 — so the typical Tab is around 63 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1960s
- 38.3% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 4.1%
- Mostly a past generation
- Recorded since 1950
- 1,110
- People you could plausibly meet
1960s — 38.3% of all recorded uses (425).
Is Tab 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 1957 (120)
- Years since peak
- 68
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 31.4% average annual change
Where Tab is used
Across 1910–2025, Tab was most concentrated in Ohio — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 373,742 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1Ohio1 in 100,000
- 2California1 in —
- 3Illinois1 in —
- 4Indiana1 in —
- 5Michigan1 in —
- 6Minnesota1 in —
- 7North Carolina1 in —
- 8New York1 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. Tab has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Tab around the world
Where Tab 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 Australia1958–2012#771in 2012
Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Tab by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Tab
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Tab
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.