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Urban

#5,372 in 2025Boys' name

Of the town or city, urbane

Urban has been given to 3,264 babies in the U.S. since 1880. In 2025 it ranked #5,372 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 1924, with 104 recorded.

Babies named Urban, 2025

1 in 184,000

Urban over time, 1880–2025

Boys
05010015018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Urban: meaning, origin, and history

Of the town or city, urbane

Latin

What Urban means

Urban means “of the town or city, urbane”, associated with urbānus.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

Latin Urbānus, name of eight early popes, from urbānus (“of the town or city, urbane”). Doublet of Orban.

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Urban (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Urban is used in English, Polish, Slovak, Slovene and Swedish. Its origins include Latin.

Urban comes through Latin Urbānus.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Orban.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Urban is pronounced /ˈɜɹbən/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 3,264 boys were recorded with the name Urban between 1880 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 104 in 1924; its best national rank was #435 in 1894.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #4,261 in 2020 to #5,372 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank fell, from #3,221 in 2015 to #5,372 in 2025.

How common is Urban?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 184,000
18 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 94,900
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#5,372
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
127,662 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Urban 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 2025 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 127,662 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Urban. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Urbans were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Urban was born before 1929 — so the typical Urban is around 96 today.

Median birth year
1929
About 96 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
24.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
16.4%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
983
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 24.0% of all recorded uses (783).

Is Urban 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
+502
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
−1,111
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
−2,151
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.50×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
17.3%
Peak was 1924 (104)
Years since peak
101
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
27.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#435
1894

Spellings of Urban

Urban is not the most common spelling — Brian is, with 45.1% against Urban's 0.13%.

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 Urban is used

Across 1910–2025, Urban was most concentrated in Minnesota — about 1 in 33,333 boys, against 1 in 130,054 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

03 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Minnesota1 in 33,333
  2. 2Ohio1 in 33,333
  3. 3Iowa1 in 50,000
  4. 4Indiana1 in 50,000
  5. 5Wisconsin1 in 50,000
  6. 6Illinois1 in 100,000
  7. 7Kansas1 in 100,000
  8. 8Maine1 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. Urban has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Urban around the world

Where Urban 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.

  • England & Wales
    2006–2006
    #4,052
    in 2006
  • France
    2004–2004
    #4,439
    in 2004

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Notable people named Urban

People whose public names include Urban, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Urban in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Urban. Linked forms have their own page here.

UrianUrbanoUrbàUrbanus

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Urban by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#5,372
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 1,111
Best rank ever
#435
1894
Peak year
1924
104 that year
First recorded
1880
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
3,264
Count in 2025
18

Names similar to Urban

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

CorbanAlbanLibanUrbanoKorbanLabanSabanIbanEstebanAabanEbanUrbainEstabanJobanOrbanAbanCubanUrbinBobanStebanShubanRubanDubanQuban

Names with a curve like Urban

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Urban, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

FlorianEvertAlbinWorthHazelLudwigClareVivianBerniceCasimirSumnerClovis

Sibling names for Urban

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 Urban

Top names of 1924, Urban's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1894Boys' names starting with USlovenian Boy Names