Alvin
Alvin reached its high-water mark in 1927 at number 66, and has been recorded 162,512 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 838th. About 73,000 Alvins are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 59.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Alvin boys named Alvin
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 162,512
- Estimated living today
- 73,000
- Median age today
- 59
- Peak year
- 1927
- Best rank
- 66th
- Rank in 2025
- 838th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 1,098 / 161,414
How old the living Alvins are
born that year still alive today
Of the 162,512 babies given the name since 1880, about 73,000 are alive — 45 in every hundred. Roughly 7,600 of them are children and 30,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1966 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.
Where the name comes from
Origin Old English
From Old English Ælfwine, made up.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Alvins
- Alvin Toffler (1928–2016)American writer, futurist and businessman
- Alvin Eliot Roth (born 1951)American economist, professor
- Alvin Ailey (1931–1989)African-American dancer, choreographer and activist
- Alvin Ceccoli (born 1974)Australian association football player
- Alvin Plantinga (born 1932)American Christian philosopher
- Alvin Kraenzlein (1876–1928)American athletics competitor
- Alvin Lee (1944–2013)English singer, songwriter, and guitarist
- Alvin York (1887–1964)United States Army Medal of Honor recipient
People named Alvin with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Alvin is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Alvin is most concentrated in Louisiana (3.3×), North Dakota (2.9×), Hawaii (2.7×), South Dakota (2.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1927
The most popular boys’ names the year Alvin peaked:
Alvin elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sweden boys | Alvin | 6,350 | 27th |
| France boys | Alvin | 1,880 | 362nd |
| England and Wales boys | Alvin | 901 | 730th |
| Italy boys | Alvin | 701 | — |
| Norway boys | Alvin | 690 | 126th |
| Switzerland boys | Alvin | 162 | 503rd |
| Ireland boys | Alvin | 113 | 373rd |
| Belgium boys | Alvin | 58 | 984th |
| Scotland boys | Alvin | 15 | 297th |
| Poland boys | Alvin | 14 birth registrations | 510th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Alvin | 6 | 305th |
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.
Alvin: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Alvin | 115 | 0.009% | 449th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Alvin | 38 | 0.009% | 403rd |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Alvin | 9 | 0.014% | 115th |
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.
By canton, Alvin is most concentrated in Zurich, where 0.01% of children were given it – 35 of them.
Alvin: rank by region
In 2023, Alvin was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Alvin | 769 | 6 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Alvin by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 19 | 329th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Alvin 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 | Alvin | 579 | 756 |
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.
Related names
Alvin 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.