Alter — boys' name

What the Data Says About Alter

The Social Security Administration has registered 393 babies named Alter between 1915 and 2023, spanning 109 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Alter currently falls outside the top 1,000 boys' names for 2023. The name reached its historical peak in 2012, when 21 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Alter performed strongest in the 2000s, accumulating 107 births during that ten-year window. Across the 12 decades of recorded activity, Alter shows notable generational variation in parental adoption. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in New York, which accounts for 162 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by New Jersey. In total, SSA state-level files list Alter in 2 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Alter in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 393 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.