Oral
The boy's name Oral has been in the national records since 1880, with 3,308 births to its name. It is given to both boys and girls. It has not appeared in the national data since 2003. About 700 Orals are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 69.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Oral boys named Oral
Girls and boys called Oral
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 506 girls and 2,802 boys in all, and in 1961 the split was 0 to 29.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 49 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
- 3,308
- Estimated living today
- 700
- Median age today
- 69
- Peak year
- 1917
- Best rank
- 597th
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 506 / 2,802
How old the living Orals are
born that year still alive today
Of the 3,308 babies given the name since 1880, about 700 are alive — 21 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1956 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 Latin
Ultimately from Latin Aurelius.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Orals
- Oral Roberts (1918–2009)Christian religious leader, healing evangelist, author, educator, television personality
People named Oral with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Oral is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Oral is most concentrated in West Virginia (12.4×), Missouri (8.7×), Kentucky (8.1×), Oklahoma (6.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1917
The most popular boys’ names the year Oral peaked:
Related names
Oral 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.