Calvin
Calvin is a boy's name that peaked in 1924, when it was the 44th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 132nd. About 148,000 Calvins are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 38.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Calvin boys named Calvin
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 222,287
- Estimated living today
- 148,000
- Median age today
- 38
- Peak year
- 1924
- Best rank
- 44th
- Rank in 2025
- 132nd
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 1,223 / 221,064
How old the living Calvins are
born that year still alive today
Of the 222,287 babies given the name since 1880, about 148,000 are alive — 67 in every hundred. Roughly 41,000 of them are children and 34,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1987 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 a surname
Latinization of Norman-Picard Cauvin, a nickname for a chauve person.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Calvins
- Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)president of the United States from 1923 to 1929
- Calvin Klein (born 1942)American fashion designer
- Edward Calvin Kendall (1886–1972)American chemist
- Calvin Jong-a-Pin (born 1986)Dutch association football player
- Calvin Ramsey (born 2003)Scottish association football player
- Calvin Smith (born 1961)American sprinter
- Calvin Bassey (born 1999)Nigerian association football player
- Calvin Stengs (born 1998)Dutch association football player
People named Calvin with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Calvin is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Calvin is most concentrated in Mississippi (2.1×), Louisiana (2.0×), Arkansas (2.0×), Hawaii (2.0×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1924
The most popular boys’ names the year Calvin peaked:
Calvin elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Calvin | 4,455 | 287th |
| England and Wales boys | Calvin | 2,663 | 204th |
| Scotland boys | Calvin | 1,694 | 82nd |
| Ireland boys | Calvin | 1,120 | 135th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Calvin | 336 | 99th |
| Belgium boys | Calvin | 199 | 614th |
| Switzerland boys | Calvin | 169 | 366th |
| Poland boys | Calvin | 16 birth registrations | 372nd |
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.
Calvin: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Calvin | 118 | 0.009% | 289th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Calvin | 50 | 0.011% | 318th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Calvin | 1 | 0.002% | 179th |
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, Calvin is most concentrated in Zurich, where 0.01% of children were given it – 43 of them.
Calvin: rank by region
In 2020, Calvin was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Calvin | 870 | 5 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 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.
Calvin by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 2 | 578th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Calvin 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Calvin | 45 | 68 |
A count of people on a register – 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.
Related names
Calvin 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.