French — boys' name

What the Data Says About French

The Social Security Administration has registered 1,119 babies named French between 1882 and 1999, spanning 118 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, French currently falls outside the top 1,000 boys' names for 1999. The name reached its historical peak in 1915, when 31 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that French performed strongest in the 1920s, accumulating 247 births during that ten-year window. Across the 12 decades of recorded activity, French shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in West Virginia, which accounts for 165 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Virginia and Kentucky. In total, SSA state-level files list French in 4 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for French 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 1,119 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.