Humanverse

Vivian

The girl's name Vivian has been in the national records since 1880, with 230,755 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 70th. About 127,000 Vivians are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 31.

Popularity, 1880–2025

Births per year, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

girls named Vivian boys named Vivian

By the numbers

Total US births
230,755
Estimated living today
127,000
Median age today
31
Peak year
1920
Best rank
64th
Rank in 2025
70th
First recorded
1880
Girls / boys
228,172 / 2,583

How old the living Vivians are

Born with the name each year, and how many of them are alive today, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

born that year still alive today

Of the 230,755 babies given the name since 1880, about 127,000 are alive — 55 in every hundred. Roughly 48,000 of them are children and 40,000 are 65 or over. 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 Latin

Early saints' name from Latin Vīviānus, and of its feminine form Vīviāna, probably from vīvus (“alive”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Vivians

People named Vivian with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Vivian is most common

Relative to how many babies each state records, Vivian is most concentrated in North Dakota (1.7×), South Dakota (1.5×), South Carolina (1.5×), the District of Columbia (1.4×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1920

The most popular girls’ names the year Vivian peaked:

All the names of 1920

Vivian elsewhere

CountrySpelling BirthsBest rank
France boys Vivian 1,965 365th
Norway girls Vivian 1,742 108th
England and Wales girls Vivian 662 834th
Italy girls Vivian 520
Ireland girls Vivian 275 200th
Switzerland girls Vivian 197 308th
Ireland boys Vivian 88 130th
Poland girls Vivian 78 birth registrations 357th
Scotland girls Vivian 57 290th
France girls Vivian 55 5,993rd
England and Wales boys Vivian 25 3,334th
Belgium boys Vivian 18 992nd

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.

Vivian: births by region

RegionCountry Spelling BirthsShare of the region Best rank
German girls Switzerland Vivian 161 0.013% 231st
French girls Switzerland Vivian 10 0.002% 656th
Italian girls Switzerland Vivian 26 0.040% 81st

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, Vivian is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.04% of children were given it – 25 of them.

Vivian: rank by region

In 2006, Vivian was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.

Region Spelling Place Children
Wallonia Vivian 415 6

In 2024, Vivian was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.

Region Spelling Place Children
Mazowieckie Vivian 334 2

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, 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.

Vivian by city

CityYears BirthsBest rank
Berlin girls 2017–2023 18 332nd

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Vivian 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 Vivian 2,973 3,680
Finland girls Vivian 1,547 2,926
the Netherlands boys Vivian 21 143
Finland boys Vivian 6

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 Vivian lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 852 women called Vivian 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
Palmas, Las Vivian 41 0.070 1,333
Santa Cruz de Tenerife Vivian 38 0.069 1,228
Araba/Álava Vivian 10 0.058 1,218
Balears, Illes Vivian 34 0.054 1,220
Barcelona Vivian 163 0.054 1,134
Zaragoza Vivian 26 0.051 1,090

Listed in 31 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 21 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

Vivian against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

Compare Vivian with a name of your own

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.