Alver
Alver was last recorded in 1950, when 5 babies were given it; 124 Americans have been recorded with it between 1889 and 1950 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Alver by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Alver mean?
Wiktionary, Norwegian Bokmål section
Alver is “a male given name from Old Norse.”
The given name is of uncertain Nordic origin. It has been treated either as an Old Norse variant of Alfr (“male given name”), from alfr (“elf”), or as a younger form belonging to the name family of Old Norse Alvér, a variant of Ǫlvér. The latter name is also continued in Norwegian as Olve. Its original name elements and meaning are uncertain.
/ˈal.ʋər/
Meaning: Wiktionary, Norwegian Bokmål section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Alver?
Unranked in 2025
Its last boys’ rank on record is #3,701, in 1950; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
11 babies in 1922, the peak
Alver peaked in 1922, when 11 boys were given it, #2,634 among boys’ names. It was not recorded in 2025.
Births by sex.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 5 | #3,701 | 2.8 |
| 1943 | 5 | #3,557 | 3.5 |
| 1939 | 5 | #3,491 | 4.5 |
| 1935 | 5 | #3,660 | 4.8 |
| 1929 | 6 | #3,566 | 5.6 |
| 1928 | 6 | #3,711 | 5.4 |
| 1926 | 6 | #3,713 | 5.4 |
| 1925 | 8 | #3,160 | 7.2 |
| 1924 | 6 | #3,883 | 5.3 |
| 1923 | 10 | #2,775 | 9.1 |
Every recorded year (18)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1922 | 11 | #2,634 | 10.1 |
| 1920 | 5 | #4,304 | 4.7 |
| 1919 | 8 | #3,120 | 8.2 |
| 1917 | 7 | #3,226 | 7.6 |
| 1916 | 7 | #3,183 | 7.9 |
| 1915 | 7 | #3,089 | 8.2 |
| 1914 | 7 | #2,660 | 10.7 |
| 1889 | 5 | #976 | 45.2 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Alver a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Of the 124 Americans recorded as Alver, 4% are girls and 96% boys.
Years with fewer than 20 babies given the name are left blank.
Girls and boys named Alver: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Alver, and how old are they?
An estimated 7 Americans named Alver and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026, too few to state an age range. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 153 people named Alver (20 women and girls, 133 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 12 born in the U.S. The Census count is 12.8 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 2 names spelled alike, given to 216 babies since 1880, Alver is the most given (57% of them).
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
More about Alver and names like it
- Compare Alver and AlvarBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1920sAlver peaked in 1922.
- The top names of 1922The year the most babies were named Alver.
- Names starting with AMost given first.