Boris
Boris is a boy's name that peaked in 1970, when it was the 891st most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 3,181st. About 3,500 Borises are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 33.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Boris
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 4,621
- Estimated living today
- 3,500
- Median age today
- 33
- Peak year
- 1970
- Best rank
- 891st
- Rank in 2025
- 3,181st
- First recorded
- 1911
How old the living Borises are
born that year still alive today
Of the 4,621 babies given the name since 1911, about 3,500 are alive — 75 in every hundred. Roughly 850 of them are children and 310 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1992 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Slavic languages
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Boriss
- Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007)Soviet and Russian politician, 1st President of Russia
- Boris Johnson (born 1964)Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2022
- Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)Russian writer
- Boris Nemtsov (1959–2015)Russian scientist, statesman and liberal politician
- Boris Spassky (1937–2025)Russian chess player
- Boris Becker (born 1967)German tennis player, coach, and commentator
- Boris Tadić (born 1958)3rd President of the Republic of Serbia
- Boris Perchatkin (born 1946)Christian Russian-American human rights activist
People named Boris with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Boris is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Boris is most concentrated in New York (4.6×), California (3.1×), Florida (2.7×), North Carolina (0.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1970
The most popular boys’ names the year Boris peaked:
Boris elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Boris | 15,900 | 112th |
| Belgium boys | Boris | 1,443 | 75th |
| England and Wales boys | Boris | 726 | 721st |
| Italy boys | Boris | 368 | — |
| Switzerland boys | Boris | 305 | 343rd |
| Norway boys | Boris | 142 | 390th |
| Poland boys | Boris | 92 birth registrations | 268th |
| Ireland boys | Boris | 15 | 393rd |
| Northern Ireland boys | Boris | 10 | 374th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Boris: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Boris | 202 | 0.016% | 393rd |
| French boys | Switzerland | Boris | 84 | 0.019% | 264th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Boris | 19 | 0.029% | 65th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Boris is most concentrated in Vaud, where 0.02% of children were given it – 39 of them.
Boris: rank by region
In 2025, Boris was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Boris | 71 | 74 |
In 2021, Boris was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Łódzkie | Boris | 164 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Boris appears in the lists for Province of Antwerp (56th), Province of Flemish Brabant (57th), Province of East Flanders (69th), Province of West Flanders (89th) and Province of Limburg (132nd).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Boris by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 13 | 451st |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Boris among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | Boris | 3,870 | 4,402 |
| Finland boys | Boris | 348 | 603 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Boris lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,468 men called Boris were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Segovia | Boris | 15 | 0.189 | 427 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Boris | 141 | 0.140 | 605 |
| Soria | Boris | 6 | 0.131 | 538 |
| Girona | Boris | 52 | 0.125 | 636 |
| Tarragona | Boris | 51 | 0.116 | 682 |
| Lugo | Boris | 16 | 0.101 | 597 |
Listed in 40 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 12 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Boris against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.