Rene
About 72,779 American babies have been named Rene since 1880, most of them around 1970. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 1,091st. About 59,000 Renes are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 48.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Rene boys named Rene
Girls and boys called Rene
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 21,839 girls and 50,940 boys in all, and in 2025 the split was 13 to 197.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 119 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
- 72,779
- Estimated living today
- 59,000
- Median age today
- 48
- Peak year
- 1970
- Best rank
- 261st
- Rank in 2025
- 1,091st
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 21,839 / 50,940
How old the living Renes are
born that year still alive today
Of the 72,779 babies given the name since 1880, about 59,000 are alive — 81 in every hundred. Roughly 5,400 of them are children and 11,000 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 French
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Renes
- René Descartes (1596–1650)French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist
- René Magritte (1898–1967)Belgian surrealist
- François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848)French writer, politician and historian
- René Goscinny (1926–1977)French comic book artist and author
- René Coty (1882–1962)17th President of the French Republic
- Rene Russo (born 1954)American actress and model
- René Laennec (1781–1826)French physician, inventor of stethoscope
- René Guénon (1886–1951)French metaphysician
People named Rene with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Rene is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Rene is most concentrated in Texas (3.5×), Arizona (3.1×), Rhode Island (2.8×), California (2.5×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1970
The most popular boys’ names the year Rene peaked:
Rene elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | René +1 spelling | 516,220 | 4th |
| Austria boys | Rene | 8,151 | 15th |
| Norway boys | Rene | 837 | 172nd |
| France girls | René | 385 | 497th |
| Belgium boys | René | 326 | 400th |
| England and Wales boys | Rene | 299 | 1,448th |
| England and Wales girls | Rene | 265 | 1,076th |
| Italy boys | Rene | 237 | — |
| Ireland boys | Rene | 6 | 698th |
| Ireland girls | Rene | 4 | 465th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Rene | 4 | 370th |
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.
Rene: rank by region
In 2025, Rene was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | René | 317 | 18 |
In 2018, Rene was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Rene' | 10 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Rene appears in the lists for Province of East Flanders (170th) and Province of West Flanders (178th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names – 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.
Rene 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | René | 31,437 | 41,064 |
| Finland boys | Rene +2 spellings | 860 | 1,122 |
| the Netherlands girls | René | 102 | 790 |
| Finland girls | Rene +1 spelling | 25 | 48 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, 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 Rene lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 2,769 men called Rene 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asturias | Rene | 284 | 0.586 | 202 |
| Palencia | Rene | 25 | 0.317 | 293 |
| Palmas, Las | Rene | 179 | 0.308 | 339 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Rene | 115 | 0.216 | 459 |
| Balears, Illes | Rene | 114 | 0.183 | 462 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Rene | 163 | 0.162 | 538 |
Listed in 46 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 6 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
Rene 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.