Cleo
Cleo reached its high-water mark in 1920 at number 191, and has been recorded 45,092 times in all. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 577th. About 12,000 Cleos are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 48.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Cleo boys named Cleo
Girls and boys called Cleo
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 33,565 girls and 11,527 boys in all, and in 2025 the split was 516 to 18.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 143 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 45,092
- Estimated living today
- 12,000
- Median age today
- 48
- Peak year
- 1920
- Best rank
- 191st
- Rank in 2025
- 577th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 33,565 / 11,527
How old the living Cleos are
born that year still alive today
Of the 45,092 babies given the name since 1880, about 12,000 are alive — 28 in every hundred. Roughly 4,400 of them are children and 5,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1977 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 Ancient Greek
Shortened from Cleopatra or a variant of Clio. The rare male name derives from names of Ancient Greek origin such as Cleon and Cleopas.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Cleos
- Cléo (born 1985)Brazilian association football player
- Cleo (born 1983)Polish singer
- Cleo Laine (1927–2025)English jazz singer and actress
- Cléo de Mérode (1875–1966)French dancer
- Cléo Pires (born 1982)Brazilian actress
- Cleo Moore (1924–1973)American actress
- Cleo King (born 1962)American actress
- Cleo Madison (1883–1964)actress and film director
People named Cleo with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Cleo is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Cleo is most concentrated in Arkansas (4.4×), Oklahoma (4.0×), Mississippi (2.9×), South Carolina (2.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1920
The most popular girls’ names the year Cleo peaked:
Cleo elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Cléo +1 spelling | 6,985 | 129th |
| England and Wales girls | Cleo | 4,842 | 114th |
| Sweden girls | Cleo | 1,326 | 56th |
| Belgium girls | Cleo +1 spelling | 1,232 | 133rd |
| France boys | Cleo +1 spelling | 655 | 1,019th |
| Switzerland girls | Cleo +1 spelling | 483 | 148th |
| Scotland girls | Cleo | 255 | 173rd |
| Ireland girls | Cleo | 220 | 233rd |
| New Zealand girls | Cleo | 94 | 82nd |
| Northern Ireland girls | Cleo | 45 | 209th |
| Belgium boys | Cléo | 5 | 1,416th |
| Poland girls | Cleo | 5 birth registrations | 507th |
| England and Wales boys | Cleo | 3 | 4,749th |
| Ireland boys | Cleo | 3 | 321st |
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.
Cleo: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Cleo | 232 | 0.019% | 120th |
| German girls | Switzerland | Cléo | 96 | 0.008% | 258th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Cléo | 115 | 0.026% | 177th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Cleo | 28 | 0.006% | 359th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Cleo | 12 | 0.018% | 87th |
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, Cleo is most concentrated in Basel-Stadt, where 0.09% of children were given it – 33 of them.
Cleo: rank by region
In 2025, Cleo was given 5 times or more in 4 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Cleo | 98 | 55 |
| Flanders | Cléo | 198 | 28 |
| Wallonia | Cléo | 84 | 30 |
| Brussels | Cleo | 244 | 5 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Cleo appears in the lists for Province of Luxembourg (Cléo, 46th), Province of Walloon Brabant (Cléo, 50th), Province of West Flanders (Cleo, 62nd), Province of East Flanders (Cleo, 78th), Province of Flemish Brabant (Cleo, 86th), Province of Limburg (Cleo, 94th), Province of Liège (Cléo, 98th), Province of Hainaut (Cléo, 102nd), Province of West Flanders (Cléo, 160th), Province of East Flanders (Cléo, 171st), Province of Antwerp (Cleo, 182nd), Brussels-Capital Region (Cleo, 244th) and Province of Antwerp (Cléo, 276th).
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.
Cleo by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 289 | 36th |
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 4 | 548th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Cleo 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 girls | Cleo +1 spelling | 40 | 49 |
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 Cleo lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 272 women called Cleo were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barcelona | Cleo | 67 | 0.022 | 2,076 |
| Pontevedra | Cleo | 11 | 0.022 | 1,608 |
| Balears, Illes | Cleo | 11 | 0.018 | 2,727 |
| Almería | Cleo | 6 | 0.016 | 2,699 |
| Coruña, A | Cleo | 9 | 0.015 | 2,055 |
| Granada | Cleo | 7 | 0.015 | 2,263 |
Listed in 15 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 37 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
Cleo 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.