Foster — #1074 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Foster

The Social Security Administration has registered 12,858 babies named Foster between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Foster currently holds the #1074 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 2023, when 232 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Foster performed strongest in the 2010s, accumulating 1,894 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Foster shows notable generational variation in parental adoption. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Texas, which accounts for 754 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Pennsylvania and Ohio. In total, SSA state-level files list Foster in 37 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Foster 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 12,858 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.