Little
Little is a boy's name that peaked in 1975, when it was the 1,593rd most popular in the United States. It has not appeared in the national data since 2017. About 1,000 Littles are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 53.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Little boys named Little
Girls and boys called Little
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 218 girls and 1,573 boys in all, and in 1981 the split was 7 to 18.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 22 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,791
- Estimated living today
- 1,000
- Median age today
- 53
- Peak year
- 1975
- Best rank
- 1,593rd
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1883
- Girls / boys
- 218 / 1,573
How old the living Littles are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,791 babies given the name since 1883, about 1,000 are alive — 56 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1972 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.
Notable Littles
- Little Richard (1932–2020)American musician
- Little Walter (1930–1968)American blues harmonica player
- Little Eva (1943–2003)American singer
- Little Jimmy Dickens (1920–2015)American musician
- Little Caprice (born 1988)Czech pornographic actress
- Thomas Little Heath (1861–1940)British civil servant, mathematician and classicist
- Little Willie John (1937–1968)American R&B singer
- Little Milton (1933–2005)American singer and guitarist
People named Little with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Little is most common
Across the country Little is recorded 0.03 times per 100,000 births, so these are the states above that line. Only states with 50 or more recorded Littles are ranked here: below that a handful of births makes a rate that moves on chance alone.
Counts favour the big states, which is why the same few lead this list for almost every name.
Births recorded in each state since 1910. A name given to fewer than five babies in one state in one year is not published, so a name's quietest states are missing from this rather than showing zero. Browse names by state.
Names of 1975
The most popular boys’ names the year Little peaked:
Related names
Little 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.