Ken — #3272 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Ken

The Social Security Administration has registered 32,979 babies named Ken between 1900 and 2024, spanning 125 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Ken currently holds the #3272 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1960, when 1,776 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Ken performed strongest in the 1960s, accumulating 11,902 births during that ten-year window. Across the 13 decades of recorded activity, Ken shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 6,039 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Illinois and Michigan. In total, SSA state-level files list Ken in 49 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Ken 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 32,979 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.