Captain
Captain was given to 18 boys in 2025, #5,240 among boys’ names; 466 Americans have been recorded with it since 1883 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Captain by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Captain?
#5,240 among boys’ names, 2025
Captain fell from #4,091 in 2015 to #5,240 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born fell from 13.0 to 10.5 per million.
33 babies in 2018, the peak
Captain peaked in 2018, when 33 boys were given it, #3,379 among boys’ names. The 18 births of 2025 are 55% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 18 | #5,240 | 10.5 |
| 2024 | 12 | #6,902 | 7.0 |
| 2023 | 20 | #4,905 | 11.7 |
| 2022 | 24 | #4,318 | 13.7 |
| 2021 | 19 | #4,956 | 10.9 |
| 2020 | 21 | #4,559 | 12.2 |
| 2019 | 23 | #4,347 | 12.8 |
| 2018 | 33 | #3,379 | 18.2 |
| 2017 | 25 | #4,122 | 13.5 |
| 2016 | 32 | #3,453 | 16.9 |
Every recorded year (35)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 25 | #4,091 | 13.0 |
| 2014 | 26 | #3,915 | 13.5 |
| 2013 | 23 | #4,200 | 12.2 |
| 2012 | 17 | #5,279 | 9.0 |
| 2011 | 20 | #4,679 | 10.5 |
| 2010 | 12 | #6,747 | 6.3 |
| 2009 | 6 | #11,215 | 3.0 |
| 2008 | 11 | #7,274 | 5.4 |
| 2007 | 6 | #11,126 | 2.9 |
| 2006 | 5 | #12,321 | 2.4 |
| 2005 | 7 | #9,264 | 3.5 |
| 1981 | 6 | #5,595 | 3.3 |
| 1958 | 5 | #4,025 | 2.4 |
| 1942 | 5 | #3,631 | 3.6 |
| 1938 | 5 | #3,589 | 4.5 |
| 1924 | 7 | #3,540 | 6.2 |
| 1922 | 6 | #3,922 | 5.5 |
| 1920 | 5 | #4,383 | 4.7 |
| 1919 | 5 | #4,244 | 5.1 |
| 1918 | 7 | #3,411 | 6.9 |
| 1916 | 6 | #3,562 | 6.7 |
| 1910 | 6 | #1,444 | 30.9 |
| 1901 | 5 | #1,072 | 47.0 |
| 1887 | 8 | #695 | 78.9 |
| 1883 | 5 | #914 | 47.8 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Captain a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Captain has been recorded only for boys: SSA lists no girls with the name in 35 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Captain: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Captain, and how old are they?
An estimated 394 Americans named Captain and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (85% of everyone recorded); the median is 10 years old and half are between 6 and 13. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 514 people named Captain (28 women and girls, 486 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 289 born in the U.S. The Census count is 1.8 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 521 babies since 1880, Captain is the most given (89% 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 Captain and names like it
- Compare Captain and KaptainBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sCaptain peaked in 2018.
- California’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Captain since 1910.
- The top names of 2018The year the most babies were named Captain.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Captain alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with CMost given first.