Alvar
Alvar is a boy's name that peaked in 1917, when it was the 1,986th most popular in the United States. It has not appeared in the national data since 2015. About 11 Alvars are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 10.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Alvar
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 92
- Estimated living today
- 11
- Median age today
- 10
- Peak year
- 1917
- Best rank
- 1,986th
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1914
How old the living Alvars are
born that year still alive today
Of the 92 babies given the name since 1914, about 11 are alive — 12 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2015 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Notable Alvars
- Alvar Aalto (1898–1976)Finnish architect and designer
- Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (1507–1559)Spanish explorer of the New World
- Alvar Cawén (1886–1935)Finnish painter
- Alvar Thiel (1893–1973)sailor
People named Alvar with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Names of 1917
The most popular boys’ names the year Alvar peaked:
Alvar elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sweden boys | Alvar | 292 | 93rd |
| Switzerland boys | Alvar | 48 | 936th |
| Norway boys | Alvar | 27 | 246th |
| England and Wales boys | Alvar | 25 | 3,334th |
| France boys | Alvar | 10 | 6,713th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Alvar: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Alvar | 41 | 0.003% | 787th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Alvar | 7 | 0.002% | 632nd |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
Alvar by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 29 | 310th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Alvar among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Alvar | 3,236 | 7,367 |
| Finland girls | Alvar | — | 9 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Alvar lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 1,159 men called Alvar were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burgos | Alvar | 333 | 1.835 | 93 |
| Valladolid | Alvar | 42 | 0.163 | 428 |
| Palencia | Alvar | 7 | 0.089 | 697 |
| Barcelona | Alvar | 257 | 0.088 | 740 |
| Guadalajara | Alvar | 12 | 0.083 | 705 |
| Cantabria | Alvar | 21 | 0.073 | 757 |
Listed in 26 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 26 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Alvar against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.