Than
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Than has been given to 36 babies in the U.S. since 1956. 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 1986, with 8 recorded.
Babies named Than, 2013
1 in 729,000
Than 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Than?
Than had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2013, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2013
- 1 in 729,000
- 5 of 3,645,938 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 378,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 2013
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 505,435 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Than sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2013 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 505,435 children born in 2013 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Than. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Thans were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Than was born before 1986 — so the typical Than is around 39 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1980s
- 52.8% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 33.3%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 36
- People you could plausibly meet
1980s — 52.8% of all recorded uses (19).
Is Than 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 1986 (8)
- Years since peak
- 39
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 20.0% average annual change
Spellings of Than
Than is not the most common spelling — Ryan is, with 17.5% against Than'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.
Than around the world
Where Than 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.
- France2008–2023#7,030in 2023
- South Australia2010–2010#754in 2010
Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Than by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Than
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Than
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.