Gary — #1129 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Gary

The Social Security Administration has registered 901,938 babies named Gary between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Gary currently holds the #1129 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1952, when 38,753 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Gary performed strongest in the 1950s, accumulating 329,935 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Gary shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 77,434 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by New York and Ohio. In total, SSA state-level files list Gary in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Gary 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 901,938 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.