Early — boys' name

What the Data Says About Early

The Social Security Administration has registered 3,979 babies named Early between 1880 and 2022, spanning 143 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Early currently falls outside the top 1,000 boys' names for 2022. The name reached its historical peak in 1927, when 88 babies received it in a single year. Early is classified as unisex in SSA records: the opposite-sex variant accounts for 373 additional births since 1891.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Early performed strongest in the 1920s, accumulating 774 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Early shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Alabama, which accounts for 405 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Georgia and North Carolina. In total, SSA state-level files list Early in 11 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Early 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 3,979 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.