Gustaf
The boy's name Gustaf has been in the national records since 1880, with 747 births to its name. It has not appeared in the national data since 2023. About 240 Gustafs are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 25.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Gustaf
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 747
- Estimated living today
- 240
- Median age today
- 25
- Peak year
- 1917
- Best rank
- 1,396th
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1880
How old the living Gustafs are
born that year still alive today
Of the 747 babies given the name since 1880, about 240 are alive — 32 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2000 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 Swedish
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Gustafs
- Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden (born 1946)King of Sweden since 1973
- Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1867–1951)Finnish military leader and statesman
- Nils Gustaf Dalén (1869–1937)Swedish Nobel Laureate and industrialist
- Gustaf V of Sweden (1858–1950)King of Sweden from 1907 to 1950
- Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden (1882–1973)King of Sweden (1950–1973); anthropologist, art historian, collector and archaeologist
- Gustaf Skarsgård (born 1980)Swedish actor
- Gustaf Gründgens (1899–1963)German actor, director, intendant
- Gustaf de Laval (1845–1913)Swedish engineer
People named Gustaf with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Gustaf is most common
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1917
The most popular boys’ names the year Gustaf peaked:
Gustaf elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Gustaf | 6 | 4,333rd |
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.
Gustaf by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 4 | 593rd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Gustaf 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 | Gustaf | 139 | 1,574 |
Among boys in Finland this is mostly a middle name: of the 1,574 who carry it, 139 go by it.
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
Gustaf 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.