Hannibal
About 784 American babies have been named Hannibal since 1885, most of them around 2015. In 2025 it ranked 10,695th. About 590 Hannibals are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 31.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Hannibal
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 784
- Estimated living today
- 590
- Median age today
- 31
- Peak year
- 2015
- Best rank
- 4,890th
- Rank in 2025
- 10,695th
- First recorded
- 1885
How old the living Hannibals are
born that year still alive today
Of the 784 babies given the name since 1885, about 590 are alive — 76 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1994 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 Punic
From Latin Hannibal, a rendering of xpu 𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋 (“May the Lord (Baal) grace me”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Hannibals
- Hannibal (246 BC–182 BC)Carthaginian general (247–183/181 BC)
- Hannibal Hamlin (1809–1891)Vice President of the United States from 1861 to 1865
- Hannibal Mejbri (born 2003)Tunisian-French footballer
- Hannibal Buress (born 1983)American comedian and writer
- Hannibal Gisko (299 BC–257 BC)Carthaginian military commander in 1st Punic War
- Hannibal Muammar Gaddafi (born 1975)son of Muammar Gaddafi
- Hannibal Sehested (1842–1924)Danish council president
- Hannibal Goodwin (1822–1900)American inventor in film development
People named Hannibal with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Hannibal is most common
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2015
The most popular boys’ names the year Hannibal peaked:
Hannibal elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Hannibal | 40 | 3,231st |
| England and Wales boys | Hannibal | 9 | 4,749th |
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.
Hannibal 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 | Hannibal | — | 11 |
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
Hannibal 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.