Colonel — boys' name

What the Data Says About Colonel

The Social Security Administration has registered 1,250 babies named Colonel between 1880 and 1987, spanning 108 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Colonel currently falls outside the top 1,000 boys' names for 1987. The name reached its historical peak in 1920, when 37 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Colonel performed strongest in the 1920s, accumulating 274 births during that ten-year window. Across the 11 decades of recorded activity, Colonel shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in North Carolina, which accounts for 48 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Alabama and Kentucky. In total, SSA state-level files list Colonel in 4 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Colonel 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 1,250 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.