Royal
About 24,394 American babies have been named Royal since 1880, most of them around 2021. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 476th. About 18,000 Royals are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 8.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Royal boys named Royal
Girls and boys called Royal
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 4,322 girls and 20,072 boys in all, and in 2025 the split was 125 to 640.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 139 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
- 24,394
- Estimated living today
- 18,000
- Median age today
- 8
- Peak year
- 2021
- Best rank
- 369th
- Rank in 2025
- 476th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 4,322 / 20,072
How old the living Royals are
born that year still alive today
Of the 24,394 babies given the name since 1880, about 18,000 are alive — 72 in every hundred. Roughly 13,000 of them are children and 1,600 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2017 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 English
A habitational surname, shaped by folk etymology, from places in England, Riehale, Righale, Ryhill and Ryall, Old English ryge (“rye”) + hyll (“hill”), and Royle, rā (“roe”) + hyll (“hill”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Royals
- Royal Rife (1888–1971)American inventor
- Royal Dano (1922–1994)American actor
- Royal Harwood Frost (1879–1950)American astronomer
- Royal Consort Huibin Jang (1659–1701)Executed Royal wife of Sukjong of Joseon
- Royal Ivey (born 1981)American basketball player
- Royal Robbins (1935–2017)American rock climber
- Royal S. Copeland (1868–1938)American politician
People named Royal with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Royal is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Royal is most concentrated in Nevada (3.4×), Louisiana (2.7×), Georgia (2.3×), Virginia (1.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2021
The most popular boys’ names the year Royal peaked:
Royal elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Royal | 106 | 1,951st |
| England and Wales girls | Royal | 33 | 3,015th |
| France boys | Royal | 20 | 4,150th |
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.
Royal 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 | Royal | — | 5 |
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
Royal 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.