Germain
The boy's name Germain has been in the national records since 1913, with 1,034 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 9,714th. About 840 Germains are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 35.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Germain boys named Germain
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,034
- Estimated living today
- 840
- Median age today
- 35
- Peak year
- 1981
- Best rank
- 1,865th
- Rank in 2025
- 9,714th
- First recorded
- 1913
- Girls / boys
- 42 / 992
How old the living Germains are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,034 babies given the name since 1913, about 840 are alive — 81 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1990 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 French
A patronymic from a medieval given name, identical with the French one; or from an ethnic term for a German.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Germains
- Jacques-Germain Soufflot (1713–1780)French architect
- Germain Henri Hess (1802–1850)Swiss chemist
- Germain Derycke (1929–1978)Belgian road bicycle racer
- Germain Pilon (1525–1590)French artist
- Germain of Paris (496–576)Bishop of Paris
- Germain Nouveau (1851–1920)French poet of the symbolist movement
- Germain Chardin (born 1983)French rower
- Germain Boffrand (1667–1754)French architect
People named Germain with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Germain is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Germain is most concentrated in California (7.4×), New York (1.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1981
The most popular boys’ names the year Germain peaked:
Germain elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Germain | 32,925 | 56th |
| Belgium boys | Germain | 199 | 555th |
| France girls | Germain | 75 | 538th |
| England and Wales boys | Germain | 6 | 3,225th |
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.
Germain: rank by region
In 2020, Germain was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wallonia | Germain | 499 | 5 |
In 2013, Germain was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Germain | 10 | 1 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names – 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.
Related names
Germain 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.