Cyril
Cyril reached its high-water mark in 1916 at number 283, and has been recorded 12,131 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 3,128th. About 4,100 Cyrils are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 48.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Cyril boys named Cyril
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 12,131
- Estimated living today
- 4,100
- Median age today
- 48
- Peak year
- 1916
- Best rank
- 283rd
- Rank in 2025
- 3,128th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 97 / 12,034
How old the living Cyrils are
born that year still alive today
Of the 12,131 babies given the name since 1880, about 4,100 are alive — 34 in every hundred. Roughly 760 of them are children and 1,300 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
Via Latin Cȳrillus, from Ancient Greek Κύριλλος, from κύριος (“lord, master”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Cyrils
- Cyril Ramaphosa (born 1952)President of South Africa since 2018
- Cyril of Alexandria (376–444)Patriarchate of Alexandria from 412 to 444
- Cyril Norman Hinshelwood (1897–1967)English physical chemist
- Cyril of Jerusalem (313–386)Christian theologian, bishop, and saint (c. 313 – 386)
- Cyril Genik (1857–1925)immigration agent
- Cyril Lucaris (1572–1638)Patriarch of Constantinople
- Cyril M. Kornbluth (1923–1958)American science fiction author
- Cyril of Turaw (1130–1182)Belarusian and Ukrainian saint
People named Cyril with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Cyril is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Cyril is most concentrated in Minnesota (4.3×), Wisconsin (3.9×), Louisiana (3.2×), Pennsylvania (3.1×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1916
The most popular boys’ names the year Cyril peaked:
Cyril elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Cyril | 88,435 | 19th |
| Belgium boys | Cyril | 2,575 | 85th |
| Switzerland boys | Cyril | 803 | 102nd |
| Ireland boys | Cyril | 528 | 91st |
| England and Wales boys | Cyril | 201 | 1,457th |
| France girls | Cyril | 5 | 2,248th |
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.
Cyril: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Cyril | 517 | 0.042% | 113th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Cyril | 280 | 0.064% | 62nd |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Cyril | 4 | 0.006% | 179th |
| Romansh boys | Switzerland | Cyril | 2 | 0.054% | 15th |
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, Cyril is most concentrated in Valais, where 0.11% of children were given it – 74 of them.
Cyril: rank by region
In 2025, Cyril was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Cyril | 246 | 24 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Cyril appears in the lists for Province of Flemish Brabant (112th) and Province of East Flanders (170th).
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.
Cyril by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 4 | 580th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Cyril 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 | Cyril | 11 | 22 |
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
Cyril 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.