One subject, in depth · bridged to FuelFacts
NameCurve
Boys' name · 90,521 recorded births

Ross

#1,459 in the US in 2025

Where Ross stands

United States register · 1880–2025

#1,459boys’ names · US 2025

Ross was the 1,459th most registered boys' name in the United States in 2025, on 122 births.

peak 1985 · 1,884188019532025

Its moment was 1985, when 1,884 babies were given it.

SOURCE·US Social Security Administration, national baby-name data·Public domain. retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified. SSA lists a name only if it was given to at least 5 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

#1,459US rank, 2025 (boys)
122US births in 2025
#122its best US rank, in 1889
1985peak year — 1,884 births
81,872US births since 1880
8,535NZ births since 1918
114E&W births, 2019–2025
Saved in this browser only — no account, nothing sent anywhere.

How Ross's figures are worked out

  1. Counts come straight from the registrars: the US Social Security Administration (1880–2025) and the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (1900–2025). Nothing is scraped from another names site. The SSA files are the agency's own, retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified.
  2. Ranks are computed against every name in that year's file, not just the ones this site publishes pages for — otherwise a rank would flatter every name we happen to list.
  3. The curve is drawn on births per 100,000 of that sex, not raw counts. Raw counts across eras are misleading: far more births were registered in 1957 than in 1890, so a flat count is a falling share.
  4. The reporting floor. Each registrar publishes a name only once it clears a threshold — 5 births of that sex in the US, 10 in New Zealand. Expressed as a share that threshold is itself a curve, and it is drawn on every chart here as the shaded band along the base.
  5. A missing year is a suppressed value, never a zero. Where the registrar published nothing, this site prints “below floor” or “<5”, the curve is broken rather than drawn across the gap, and the missing years are marked on the floor line. Ross was under the floor in no year of its US record.
share per 100,000 = births ÷ all births of that sex that year × 100,000
reporting floor (share) = 5 ÷ all births of that sex that year × 100,000

Full methodology →

Ross in the United States

188019001920194019601980200020200.052104
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 5-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Ross in the United States, 1880–2025

Between 2016 and 2025 the name has been falling — down 29% as a share of boys' births.

SOURCE·US Social Security Administration, national baby-name data·Public domain. retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified. SSA lists a name only if it was given to at least 5 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Ross in New Zealand

In New Zealand, Ross has been registered 8,535 times since 1918, peaking in 1960 with 305 births. It did not clear the DIA's 10-birth reporting floor in 2025.

1900192019401960198020002020NOT PUBLISHED — BELOW THE 10-BIRTH FLOOR0.05331066
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 10-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Ross in New Zealand, 1900–2025

SOURCE·NZ Department of Internal Affairs, births by first name·CC BY 4.0. DIA lists a name only if it was given to at least 10 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Ross in England & Wales

In England and Wales, Ross was registered 114 times between 2019 and 2025, peaking in 2019 with 33 births. It ranked #2,013 for boys in 2025 on 12 births. Across those years it has been falling.

2020NOT PUBLISHED — BELOW THE 3-BIRTH FLOOR0.05.411
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 3-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Ross in England and Wales, 2019–2025

Seven years is a window, not a history. Unlike the American and New Zealand series this one cannot show you a name's arrival or its long decline — ONS publishes the full list only from 2019. England and Wales only: Scotland and Northern Ireland publish separately and are not counted here.

SOURCE·Office for National Statistics, baby names in England and Wales·Open Government Licence v3.0. ONS redacts any name given to 2 or fewer babies of that sex that year, under s40 of the Freedom of Information Act.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Decade by decade in the US

US rank and births at each decade markSSA · JUL 2026
YearRankBirths
1880#18469
1890#141101
1900#21683
1910#229103
1920#229548
1930#251500
1940#260458
1950#236769
1960#2481,044
1970#258881
1980#2301,038
1990#1901,619
2000#434561
2010#920219
2020#1,320136

<5 = the SSA published no figure for that year. It is a suppressed value, not a zero.

Where in the United States

The states that registered Ross most often since 1880. These are lifetime totals, so they track state population as much as local taste — a name common in Wyoming will never out-count California.

StateBirths
California6,419
Texas5,340
New York4,950
Pennsylvania4,246
Illinois4,206
Ohio4,148
Michigan3,775
Minnesota2,940
Indiana2,414
Wisconsin2,387

Questions about Ross

How popular is the name Ross?

Ross ranked #1,459 for boys in the United States in 2025, on 122 births registered with the Social Security Administration.

When was Ross most popular?

Ross peaked in 1985, when 1,884 babies in the United States were given the name.

Is Ross rising or falling?

Measured as a share of all boys' births, Ross has been falling between 2016 and 2025 (-29%).

Same sex, peaking within a few years of 1985, at a comparable scale. Not a taste engine — this is arithmetic on peak years, which is why it will occasionally hand you something unfashionable that is nonetheless exactly of the period.

SOURCE·US SSA (1880–2025) + NZ DIA (1900–2025) birth registrations·ranks and shares computed from the source files, see method·REVIEWED JUL 2026

See what every site in this family answers

Published by

Amit Sharma

Auckland real-estate agent and marketer. Builds free, sourced data tools.