Iris
The girl's name Iris has been in the national records since 1880, with 102,320 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 61st. About 75,000 Irises are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 20.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Iris boys named Iris
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 102,320
- Estimated living today
- 75,000
- Median age today
- 20
- Peak year
- 2025
- Best rank
- 61st
- Rank in 2025
- 61st
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 101,550 / 770
How old the living Irises are
born that year still alive today
Of the 102,320 babies given the name since 1880, about 75,000 are alive — 73 in every hundred. Roughly 35,000 of them are children and 15,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2005 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 Ancient Greek
From Ancient Greek Ἶρις (“rainbow”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Iriss
- Iris Murdoch (1919–1999)Irish-born British writer and philosopher
- Iris Mittenaere (born 1993)French beauty pageant winner
- Iris Apfel (1921–2024)American interior designer and fashion icon
- Iris Chang (1968–2004)Chinese-American journalist and author of historical books
- Iris (born 1995)Belgian singer
- Iris Apatow (born 2002)American actress
- Iris Marion Young (1949–2006)American philosopher
- Iris Adrian (1912–1994)American actress
People named Iris with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Iris is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Iris is most concentrated in Hawaii (2.5×), North Carolina (1.6×), Virginia (1.4×), New York (1.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2025
The most popular girls’ names the year Iris peaked:
Iris elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Iris +1 spelling | 25,805 | 11th |
| England and Wales girls | Iris | 11,112 | 66th |
| Italy girls | Iris | 9,678 | — |
| Spain girls | Iris | 6,358 | 73rd |
| Sweden girls | Iris | 3,941 | 28th |
| Belgium girls | Iris | 2,353 | 49th |
| Norway girls | Iris | 2,122 | 76th |
| Switzerland girls | Iris +1 spelling | 1,262 | 83rd |
| Austria girls | Iris | 573 | 54th |
| Scotland girls | Iris | 556 | 115th |
| Ireland girls | Iris | 478 | 120th |
| France boys | Iris | 125 | 5,585th |
| New Zealand girls | Iris | 87 | 86th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Iris | 72 | 151st |
| Poland girls | Iris | 50 birth registrations | 422nd |
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.
Iris: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Iris | 450 | 0.036% | 181st |
| German girls | Switzerland | Íris | 52 | 0.004% | 730th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Iris | 615 | 0.141% | 19th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Íris | 57 | 0.013% | 218th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Iris | 79 | 0.121% | 22nd |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Iris | 8 | 0.215% | 3rd |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Íris | 1 | 0.027% | 9th |
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, Iris is most concentrated in Fribourg, where 0.16% of children were given it – 111 of them.
Iris: rank by region
In 2025, Iris was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Iris | 225 | 24 |
| Wallonia | Iris | 22 | 95 |
| Brussels | Iris | 21 | 27 |
In 2024, Iris was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Iris | 8 | 1 |
In 2024, Iris was given 2 times or more in 2 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lubelskie | Iris | 148 | 2 |
| Mazowieckie | Iris | 334 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Iris appears in the lists for Province of Luxembourg (11th), Province of Namur (20th), Brussels-Capital Region (21st), Province of Hainaut (22nd), Province of Liège (23rd), Province of Walloon Brabant (32nd), Province of Flemish Brabant (97th) and Province of Antwerp (326th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, 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.
Iris by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 37 | 318th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Iris 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 girls | Iris | 23,182 | 26,220 |
| Finland girls | Iris +1 spelling | 2,162 | 3,395 |
| the Netherlands boys | Iris | — | 45 |
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 Iris lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 14,563 women called Iris were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lleida | Iris | 307 | 1.378 | 128 |
| Tarragona | Iris | 530 | 1.212 | 141 |
| Castellón/Castelló | Iris | 340 | 1.078 | 161 |
| Huesca | Iris | 107 | 0.948 | 161 |
| Barcelona | Iris | 2,727 | 0.896 | 179 |
| Valencia/València | Iris | 1,218 | 0.863 | 176 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Iris 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.