Caress
Caress was last recorded in 2000, when 5 babies were given it; 209 Americans have been recorded with it between 1978 and 2000 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Caress by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Caress?
Unranked in 2025
Its last girls’ rank on record is #15,449, in 2000; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
69 babies in 1986, the peak
Caress peaked in 1986, when 69 girls were given it, #1,692 among girls’ names. It was not recorded in 2025.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 5 | #15,449 | 2.8 |
| 1998 | 5 | #14,512 | 2.8 |
| 1997 | 5 | #14,100 | 2.9 |
| 1995 | 7 | #10,688 | 4.0 |
| 1994 | 6 | #12,013 | 3.4 |
| 1993 | 10 | #8,148 | 5.5 |
| 1991 | 6 | #11,717 | 3.2 |
| 1990 | 11 | #7,372 | 5.8 |
| 1989 | 19 | #4,694 | 10.3 |
| 1988 | 20 | #4,332 | 11.2 |
Every recorded year (14)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | 36 | #2,728 | 20.7 |
| 1986 | 69 | #1,692 | 40.2 |
| 1981 | 5 | #10,627 | 3.0 |
| 1978 | 5 | #9,939 | 3.3 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Caress a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Caress has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 14 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Caress: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Caress, and how old are they?
An estimated 203 Americans named Caress and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (97% of everyone recorded); the median is 39 years old and half are between 36 and 40. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 229 people named Caress (225 women and girls, 4 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 205 born in the U.S. The Census count is 12% above that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census records the name people give, which for many is the short form Caress rather than the name on their birth record, and it counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out.
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 6 names spelled alike, given to 4,023 babies since 1880, Caress is the third most given (5.2% of them). In 2025 none of their 47 babies recorded by SSA was a Caress (SSA lists a name only with 5 or more babies of one sex).
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.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Caress
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Caress and names like it
- Compare Caress and CarysBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1980sCaress peaked in 1986.
- Illinois’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Caress since 1910.
- The top names of 1986The year the most babies were named Caress.
- The names of the MillennialsMost people named Caress alive today were born 1981-1996.
- Names starting with CMost given first.