Starling — #9879 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Starling

The Social Security Administration has registered 987 babies named Starling between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Starling currently holds the #9879 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1920, when 26 babies received it in a single year. Starling is classified as unisex in SSA records: the opposite-sex variant accounts for 217 additional births since 1930.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Starling performed strongest in the 1920s, accumulating 155 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Starling shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Georgia, which accounts for 10 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by New York and Kentucky. In total, SSA state-level files list Starling in 4 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Starling 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 987 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.